Through the Wilderness
After a minimalist breakfast – well, I was kinda running out of food – I rolled down the east bank of Altafjorden in the scorching hot sun under an immaculate sky. Which was only interrupted once by the shadow of a giant bird of prey, most likely a sea eagle. I had an ice cream at the only shop I would pass for the first eighty-ish kilometers of the day before I climbed up into Leirbotndalen, a natural reserve in a long, green valley.
That road took me to about half the altitude of the plateau of nothingness where I joined the main EV1 route by a large water reservoir. I climbed the other half on the main road, frequently reminescing about my last trip on that road and how bad the wind and rain were that day at what part of the road. Today the weather was nothing like that, the streak of unbroken blue sky continued.
In Skaidi at the only shop I met a couple of tourers whom I'd seen two days ago while they were boarding the MS Nordlys; they had sailed to Honningsvåg. What's more, they both actually had heard about the Bright Midnight race and I seized the opportunity to proudly wear my BM 2024 bucket hat. Another customer at the same place was an e-bike tourer we'd met a couple times on Lofoten who was now rolling back to Alta to finish her trip.
East Coast
In Olderfjord another cyclist caught up to me who I'd met the day before at a supermarket in Alta. We rode together for the next twenty kilometers before he took a break at an awesome new resting place next to the road. Speaking of, there were visible signs of recent improvements at many points on that eastern road. Not just the resting site was recently constructed but also there are now two new tunnels on that road, one of them even boasts a separated bike lane. I remember seeing the construction site last time around, thinking it would be another instance of a tunnel that would be exclusive to cars. I'm happy to have been wrong that way!
The eastern coast of that peninsula south of Nordkapp was as phenomenal as ever. Absolutely stunning scenery and loads of variety too: there are dreamy fishing villages in a cove, sandy beaches, steep cliffs and rocky promontories, the wide open sea of the Porsangerfjord, lighthouses and beacons on islands. Not to mention the wildlife: reindeer messing about on the roads, seagulls on the hunt for the best fish, grouse roaming the bogs, rabbits on the roadside – and in a surprise feature, a group of maybe ten dolphins in the coastal waters maybe twenty meters below the road. At first I mistook them for otters and got the camera ready before I realized that normally, otters don't loudly breathe air through a hole on the back of their heads and, more importantly, otters don't have fins on their backs. I just stood there for twenty minutes, gazing at the animals diving and reappearing over and over again.
Magerøya
Around 11 p. m. I finally reached the tunnel to Magerøya. 6800 meters of riding at a maximum depth of 212 meters under sea level. Having been through that before it was far less daunting however. I put on arm warmers and my rain jacket against the cold downhill and then went in. 28 minutes later I emerged on the other side on Magerøya.
In Honningsvåg I spontaneously made a detour all the way to the southern end of the town. It was pretty empty at that early hour but through a hotel window I could glance maybe a dozen race bikes parked in what from the furniture must have been a dining room – an indication that the NorthCape 4000 race was still going on and finishers needed to catch up on sleep.
At the campsite I was greeted by a bunch of reindeer that were grazing between the tents. Quaint, sure, but also rather annoying as fresh reindeer droppings can be found in every corner of the lawn and finding a suitable patch of six square meters without reindeer shit on it proved more complicated than I imagined.
gps tracks
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