It’s Always Sunny in Honningsvåg: June 21st, 2023

Well… that’s not quite right. The sun is always up in Honningsvåg, but the amount of actual sunshine varies quite a bit. We woke up at the hostel to a rich blue sky dotted with a few clouds. Since we paid for breakfast, Susan got the chance to try out all the tubes of food goo (her favorite was the “one with a fish on it”), and then we lugged our boxes outside to see if we could manage to assemble the bikes.

Assembling the bikes outside the hostel

 

Bike assembly went smoother than expected… until my kickstand broke. After screwing everything together I put my heaviest pannier on the back, and the kickstand (a design that clamps onto the rear triangle of the frame, since my bike lacks dedicated mounting points) promptly twisted and almost took out my rear brake cable.

Given that setback and the fact that a host of important gear was lost with Susan's bag (our cook stove, the climbing rope, Susan's shoes, not to mention the bag itself), we rode into Honningsvåg to dither about at the local sports shop. They didn’t have a kickstand that would work with my bike and be strong enough, so stopping my bike anywhere was going to be about 500% more of a PITA for the forseeable future. Luckily they did have a fair bit of stuff (backpacking stoves, panniers) that would help us out in case Susan's bag never showed up.

Touristing in Honningsvåg; making friends with the trolls

 

Susan enjoys lunch out back of the supermarket

 

By the time we got back to the hostel and were loading up the bikes to ride to Nordkapp, heavy clouds had moved in and it was raining steadily. Nothing like splashing about in a puddle, keeping my bike precariously balanced so that I can load 80+ lbs. of baggage onto it.

Loaded up and ready to ride!

 

It was getting late enough that our goal became to simply get to Nordkapp, a worthy destination since it’s the northernmost point in Europe accessible by road (71 degrees N). It was only 33 km (~20 miles), how hard could it be? Never mind the 760 meters of elevation gain. We didn’t know what that meant.

Well, what it meant was a *ton* (maybe a metric ton?) of really steep climbing on stupidly heavy bikes, right out of the gate. The rain had stopped and it was beautiful again when we actually started pedaling, which made the first horrendous climb a little easier to bear. Regardless, we learned that taking 43– 55 kilogram bikes up a 10 – 15 % grade sucks. That about sums it up.

Susan coming up the first climb

 

By the time we topped the first climb, clouds were moving back in, and rain followed shortly after. At least at this point we got to enjoy a roughly 270 m descent, although my spirits weren’t too high given my soggy toes and the difficulties with the baggage and kickstand. Susan was still happy to be on vacation, even if she did have to push her bike up the steepest parts 😊.

View towards Nordkapp from the top of the first climb, notice the dip in the distance...

 

But following this was a second big climb best described as… soul-crushing. I think it was about another 270 m back up. (The road basically goes from sea level up to a plateau, drops back down to sea level, then promptly ascends another plateau. I’m lodging a complaint with the Norwegian tourism board to see if they’ll flatten the island). Terribly steep. And that second one gives you a couple smaller, yet still terribly steep, aftershock climbs just to make sure your legs are well and truly dead.

Looking at the beginning of the second climb

 

Views from the top of the second climb

 

I was feeling pretty discouraged by this point (as the rain continued…), but Susan did her best to keep our spirits up. She’s great like that. We meandered around the Nordkapp visitor center for a bit before setting up camp and crawling into the tent to “enjoy” a dinner of cold soup with bread and ost (which is something like flavored butter-cheese in a tube; Susan is quite excited about tube food). There was a very nice rainbow though.

Without rain there wouldn't be any rainbows! And without the midnight sun they wouldn't happen at 9 PM ;)