Kids on Holiday, Pt. 1: June 23rd – June 26th, 2023

We needed to leave Honningsvåg… But first shopping! We couldn't keep going on cold dinners and no caffeine in the mornings. So to the Intersport to replace as much of the missing items as we could. Managed to get almost the same style stove, some fuel for it, 2 pots, and the most important a pannier to put it all in. Picked up some lighters at the COOP and got made fun of for asking for a receipt – hey man if the airline is maybe going to pay for this that’s a coffee some day! Then back to the hotel to pack everything up and with a little bit more cursing from Ben off we went south for a 50 kilometer day.

All loaded up, and Susan with an even number of bags!

Riding along

The ride started with this Honningsvåg tunnel. We stopped, turned on all of the lights, Ben got on his reflective vest, mine is in the missing bag. That was a nice tunnel. Easy we got this. More tunnels along the way each one well lit, some lined with wood, all cold. Then the big one - Nordkapptunnelen. Most tunnels go through a mountain and are short to 2 kilometers long. Nordkapptunnelen goes under the ocean and is 7 kilometers long.

Ben getting ready to dive under the ocean through Nordkaptunnelen

We dove straight down dropping 200 meters below sea level. I was in front and my hands were starting to go numb. I was just starting to worry about Ben’s hands when I saw I was rolling over some icy patches. Better not tell Ben as we sped down, but maybe squeeze that brake a little bit more. In Norway what goes down must go up. And we needed to get back above the ocean. Ben powered by me, I struggled until a nice pull out and lugged my bike on to the sort of side walk and started hoofing it. Ben managed to pedal the whole way. I was grateful for the emergency boxes that told you how far you had to run in either direction to escape. We now understand the phrase “Light at the end of the tunnel”.

6 kilometers down, 1 left to go in Nordkapptunnelen

A graph of our elevation the day we went through Nordkapptunnelen - bottoming out at -210 meters

Susan coming back into the light!

Eventually we emerged, blinking in the bright sun like sweaty moles. We had survived! And there was another beautiful waterfall and ocean view waiting for us. We rode on passing beautiful beaches and stopped for lunch at one of them. Well stopped for a lunch, when biking we have many lunches. The riding was easy and Ben said it finally felt like vacation. We found a campsite right off the highway next to another amazing waterfall. The water wasn’t even that cold as we collected water for the evening! First place with no toilet though so had to dig a hole. Not surprisingly Norwegian soil is NOT great for digging catholes in. Great view though.

Susan enjoying our first steps in the North Atlantic

Posing with the bikes

Ceci n'est pas une bicyclette

Mooching power off the midnight sun

Setting up camp along an especially scenic highway

We rolled into Olderfjord the next day. Ordered food at the bus stop café. Strong coffee and I smothered my waffle in the toppings very American way to eat a Norwegian Waffle but at least I didn’t pull out maple syrup. We ordered our first bus tickets using the app, feeling very pleased with ourselves for figuring it out so easily, only to discover our tickets would expire before the bus arrived. OOPS! Asked a random helpful man in the souvenir shop and he helped us out, crisis averted. When our bus arrived there were only two other people so it was easy to fit our bikes underneath.

A really nice waterfall on the way to Olderfjord. But there are so many spectacular waterfalls that we had to stop taking photos of them, otherwise we'd never be pedaling for more than 10 minutes at a time.

Hanging out with "reindeer", waiting for our "get out of hills free" card (AKA "the bus")

We rode the bus over some big hills that I was happy to not be pedaling over. We got to just outside the town of Alta and set up camp in a rest area just off the ocean of course. The toilet was a pit toilet but that is better than digging a hole. Speaking of holes. Did you know trash cans here go on forever! During breakfast we got to watch the garbage man empty the trash can. He had a crane! That trash can went down like 8 feet or something! Wild.

Waking up in Alta the weather was gloomy, but it was Sunday so the only thing to do was go climbing as everything else is always closed on Sundays. We rode to Himmeldalen for our first climbing in Norway with a single half rope (we had a really skinny rope that you usually use with another rope) because the real rope is in the missing bag. So kept it chill on the chilly day and started out with Norwegian grade 4- which went easy. So let’s try a 4. So far so good. 4+ no problem I can lead that. And we eyeballed a 5+ and backed off with the hope of buying a real rope in Alta and returning. We didn’t really want to fall on the half rope if we didn’t need to. Good day of climbing. The crag is so cute! It has a shelter, fire rings, a BATHROOM at the base of the crag.

Our first Norwegian climbing - Himmeldalen!

Ben sizes up a climbing route

Susan monkeying around on a fixed line

Crag-side amenities - camping and cooking shelter!

The next day we headed into Alta for shopping to try to replace more stuff lost with the missing bag. We failed to find most everything on our list. I got a cup. It is inferior to what I had. I hate shopping. No birthday presents for Ben. So we went back for an afternoon of climbing. Which was much more enjoyable than shopping. Met some Norwegian climbers. One was the guy who put up a lot of the routes. He was very friendly. He had a cool contraptions for keeping the bugs at bay. (P.S. We had gone south enough to find trees but also mosquitos.) The other group of Norwegian climbers was not interested in talking, but they immediately started a fire in the fire ring and started cooking food. This seems to be the norm here. We got on that 5+ from the other day with our single half rope folded up so it acted like 2 half ropes. Which makes a whole rope! We also checked out some Norwegian 6s. I got shut down and could not top rope the 6+. Noted.

Himmeldalen climbing

We went back to camp for Ben’s birthday dinner. We tried to create a Brookie (brownie cookie) by using peanut butter as glue between a store bought brownie, and a chocolate chip cookie designed to go in the oven to be warmed up. We put it on our stove which has two settings: off and BURN EVERYTHING. When the smell of burnt sugar started we knew it was ready. CALORIES.

Birthday brookie for Ben