Førstevatn

I went to bed with the sage advice from Jean and Gerard the kiwi couple-no, doubleact- ringing in my ears: if you want to avoid the wind you can always ride through the "night". So when I was up for my pee at 4am and saw the sun streaming through the window, I thought bugger the free breakfast , I'm off! ( no free breakfast? -mum would be turning in her grave!)
What an excellent idea that was. The coastal road, likely to have been a chore fighting into a headwind choking on the exhaust fumes of the millions of motor homes, was a delight: no wind , cool, clear blue skies with a low sun providing stunning light. 2 cars in the first 40km! And I was at the dreaded Nordkaap Tunnel by 8am. The tunnel is 7km long, drops to -200m under the sea, has steep inclines down and up- up to 10%, is notoriously busy and is freezing cold.
So it's no wonder this challenge hangs over any nordkaap bound tourist. There's no direct ferry- the only option being a 100k detour and a costly trip for one stop on the hurtigruten ferry. So I was pretty chuffed to ride through early enough to be passed by only 2 motor homes and one ( huge, frighteningly noisy) truck. There were several other tunnels today - one of 3km and one of 4km, but nothing compares to the NK tunnel: you really feel your descending into the bowels of the world, and are t very welcome.
Whilst there were few vehicles on the road at that time of day, there were no shortage of motor homes parked up roadside. Some amazing spots, but SO many!! I did my best to wake a few, initially with my pitch perfect singing as I cycled merry along. Later I had an amazing spectacle of a huge pod of whales spouting, broaching,and generally having a good time in the distant, sun dappled fjord. I shouted to a few sleepy campers " wake up! There's whales out there!" But to no response. Lost in translation?
I also saw fish jumping, an otter, an arctic hare, 2 sea eagles and lots of reindeer. But still no moose.
So I arrived at the youth hostel somewhat early -10am- and they kindly let me check in so I had a quick nap before an even quicker, yet extensive, tour of the highlights of Honningswag 🤔
35 km to go : just THIRTY FIVE KILOMETRES!!Okumaya devam et