For the last days, one of the crew members kept advicing: "you need
to visit a swamp! It's so awesome", so we were constantly checking into
the possibility to visit one... and there are plenty of them around Luosto!
We decide to get up early and do a quick 7km walk in a swamp...
to discover that we will only do 200m until our first foot is soaked
and half of our blood has already been sucked up by mosquitoes. It is
soo full of mosquitoes that it looks like you are in one of those movies
called "killer bees" and you need to run for your life, so we run!
We
put back our portable-sauna-motorcycle-jackets and leave as fast as
we can. We will never thank enough the crew member who advised to visit
a swap. It was a great experience!
It is already 13:00 when we leave Luosto and we
obviously forget that it is our longuest riding day: ~600km realizing that, we focus on keeping a steady riding pace rather than saving our lives.
Nature keeps throwing reindeers in our way, slowing us down...
Many kms later we reach the border with Norway.
The
change in landscape is imediate, hills become more and more visible and
degrees start to drop. Our next target is the Barents sea and more
particularly the town of Lakselv, but Norvegian kms seemed to be longer
than normal ones...
When we finally get to Lakselv it's already 20:00. We
stop for a coffee and leave in a hurry as we start to worry about the
last ferry for getting to the Island of Mageroya, where our camping is.
Landscape keeps slowing us down, it is already 21:00 and
we are still 20 km away for the point where we need to take the ferry.
We just hope that there are still ferries after 21:00 that go to
Mageroya.
We are now 800m away for the boarding point, it
should be after this turn... Wait where is it, it's not there, there is
still a tunnel, it must be after the tunnel... But wait, the tunnel is
8km long... It can't be, there is no ferry!!! There is a
under-the-wather tunnel that joins Mageroya to the continent! What a
surprise!
We are now on the island! Great! We reach Honningsvag. It's 21:30. We are
hungry, but we need to decide, check-in first? Or eat first? Our camping
is still 25kms away, but it might be open only until 22:00! Crap. We
should have not tried to play Rambo in those swamps... Let's forget the
food and go straight to the camping.
We reach the reception at 21:55. There is a big
sign "closing time 22.00". Isa runs inside, she does the check-in, Yes!!! But we are still hungry, and all restos are closed now... But we are so
lucky: it's the worldcup 2014 semi-finals today and the camping
reception-cafe will exceptionally stay open until later... Uff great, Isa orders
pizza, Miji smells reindeer and imediately orders it.
Our 600kms are made, ufff, what a long day... Bellies are now full, let's hit the beds now... No, we are not finished yet! There is so much light that Miji
thinks it's still 16:00 and insists in going for a small trekking over
the hills to find the midnight sun. Very beautiful.
We end up at 19:00
on Miji's biological clock, but in reality it's already 2:00. Now you can
say it: what a loooong day!
No comments:
Post a Comment