I went North

[Hovmod_imp]

Day Five continued:

Back in Olderfjord, where the roads to Havøysund, Nordkapp, and outtahere meet, there was a truck stoppy cafeteria with twenty-plus motorcycles lined up and all the riders in various states of undress having a meal or just a rest, and I was clearly ready for a burger myself.

This is a pretty damn good burger for anywhere. An unexpected treat for this remote spot.


Had a chat with a guy on a W800, and pushed on. I have a destination for this day as well, a couple we know lives in a farm house in Lyngen, an area with lots of fjords and mountains. I know that this sounds like every curve on every road in every ride report I write, but Lyngen is above and beyond almost anything, anywhere. The thing about fjords is that they *are* the ocean, right? The mountains surrounding fjords rise from sea level, right before your eyes. They're not the peaks on a high altitude plateau, they're peaks FROM SCRATCH. And the ones in Lyngen always give me a sense of being darker, harder, more indifferent to those puny humans trying to eke out a living on a stripe of arable land between the icy waters and the sheer walls of rock. The extreme sports people have discovered Lyngen, particularly the big mountain freestyle skiers, and every year several skiers lose their lives in Lyngen, trying to outsmart those indifferent rocks I talked about *in the winter*. So it goes.

Do you see what I mean?


Getting to Lyngen from Olderfjord starts (in this case - there are alternatives!) with another of those bits of E6 that are really super fun to ride. Lots of curves where you can stay in the same gear for miles. Then, after Skaidi, you hit Sennalandet. A somewhat elevated road across another mountain pass, that is designed to withstand the relentless winter storms and stay open all year. Notorious for the speeds they sometimes catch people doing, it's also (like so much on this trip) insanely beautiful. This time, however, on day five, the onslaught of wind made it something of a challenge to savour the landscapes. I was busy staying on my side of the road. Normally, the CB doesn't make me wish it were something else with more fairings and screens and maybe a roof and a heater unless I *really* break the speed limits, but crossing Sennalandet I had to turn my upper body into the wind to decrease severe buffeting, and I felt like I was hanging on to the Honda for my life more than I was driving it. And still. It was amazing.

No pics, because I wanted to get it over with. Push on, Hovmod, push on.

After Sennalandet you soon get to Alta, one of if not the largest cities in Finnmark. I had no interest in stopping, so I got gas and didn't take my break until I had left town. But I needed a break. My bespoke ear plugs were starting to take their toll, and particularly the left one, for some reason, was beginning to be a true nightmare to get out of my sore ear canal. My stomach was acting up, too, do you get that on long rides? I'm starting to think about what I'm going to do when I get home, but home is still Very. Far. Away.

The stretch from Alta to Lyngen? Hm. Traffic, roadworks, wind, not great. But as soon as I got on a ferry and could catch some fresh air (haha) I felt good again. Here's what some of Lyngen looks like from a ferry on a fjord:





The couple I visited are lovely people in lovely scenery, they grow lovely herbs and vegetables in a lovely, unlikely place, and they have pretty much everything they need, but the talks tended to merge on one of only a few common threads: Climate/environment vs economic needs, tourists, or general frustration with the people surrounding them. They were both from small places up north, and they had both lived most of their adult lives in larger cities: Tromsø, Trondheim, Oslo, Berlin. And many of the things that are very normal in cities are still - uh - controversial in Lyngen. So they feel a bit isolated, and it's the lack of people they have anything in common with, not that they're in a house you have to take ferries and drive through gorges to get to. Not the Lyngen Alps. It's the Lyngen minds. I have nothing to add, except I felt very welcome, I had a delightful evening in gorgeous scenery, good conversations, good food, it was a wonderful visit. I sympathise with their situation, and I also think that we need people willing and able to challenge the rusty mindset of ways of living that CLEARLY aren't sustainable. But I understand it is not always a welcome task to be those people.

Out of respect for my friends, you can only see pictures with my back to them and their house, but all of these are from their back yard:







In the morning when I got up, I got breakfast and coffee, a few more horsefly bites, an hour or two of good talks, and I left with a feeling of equal parts dread and hope.

And it is now day six. Push on.
I really appreciate the replies I get, and of course we got a good laugh from Pdedse's post!

Stay tuned for the last three days.