Nordkapp and the end of the road in Kirkenes, Norway

The ride today out of Hammerfest is a backtrack the 55 km to the E6 and then go east 97 Km to the E 69 and then north 128 KM to the North Cape.

The sun continued to shine, but riding the last 100 km to the Cape it was very windy. The 7 km sea tunnel to the island of the cape was 6 degrees at the bottom. You go 4 km down down and then 1 km a cross and 4 km back up. I really felt sorry for the bike riders since this tunnel is the definition of dank. In fact it was VERY windy for the last 20 KM over the barren mountain passes.

About 5 km before the cape a deep cloudbank enveloped us and we feared that despite the sunny day we would see nothing at the cape. Luck would have it that we came down out of the clouds just in time. We arrived to the ticket booth to see 6 buses of tourist from the cruise ships in Honningsvag, dozens of RVs, and about 30 bikes from all over Europe.

Despite this we did get right in to see the panorama movie and did get some photos and the monument between fog banks and busloads. It was a great feeling to finally make our goal of Inuvik, Ushuaia, to Nordkapp!

We tucked into a small cabin for the night and celebrated with very expensive beer. We stayed up until 2 am to enjoy the Midnight Sun.

The next day was a glorious sunny day as well. We made for the cape again just at opening. This meant we could ride the bikes right down to the monument for some photos with almost no one else there.

The plan for today was to get to Gamvik in 435 km.

The wind was much better today and in our favor. Riding back down the coast it was exciting to see all the riders coming up who were also almost to their goal.

We lost our sun about mid way and it got pretty cold after we left Ifjord. Gamvik is a very remote town on the far east of the peninsula. This is a tiny fishing village of brightly colored wooden houses. The nearest large town is Mehamn. Even camping here, which was bad was expensive. A room at the hostel with a shared bath was 990K (120 USD ). It was also 6 degrees here and so we decided that the 120 km back to Ifjord was a better idea. At least warmer anyway.

There is a not so nice campground here but they did have hot showers. Funny thing was an American man came up to us to tell us that the road ahead “ was torn up for 10 km and it is all shale and boulders”. Wow hard to believe on the E6 ( of course it was 5 km of very good dirt road……).

The rain started about midnight and continued on and off all night. We did get a bit of a break for packing up but not much. We are making for Kirkenes in 228 KM and the end of near the road in Norway. It ends at Russia just 14 km further!

Driving into town there is a military zone along the river across which is the Russian federation.

In town we stopped to watch some crazy Norwegians race snow sleds across the lake. We found a tiny cabin to get warm for the rest of the day.

This is our first day off since we left Sweden so a sleep in until 10 was in order. At noon the sky still looked clear so we headed southeast to the three points where the borders of Norway, Finland, and the Russian federation meet.

This is 100 km of paved road that has very bad frost heaves.

The last 20 km are dirt road with a few km of deeper gravel at the end. There is a lot of signage with border warnings like it is illegal to cross the border. Do not make contact across the border. Do not take photos of military personnel or vehicles. The use of tripods and telephoto lenses in the border area is illegal. OK!

Yellow markers mark the border. It looks like Dan is on the Russian side of the marker. Oops.

Then we drove up to the real border crossing for a look.

Despite 3 weeks in Norway and seeing hundreds of these signs we never saw an actual moose.