Beside the Seaside

« In Which Mike With Eats Fish | Home | A Bit Of Website Business »

In Which I Am, Briefly, Europe's Northernmost Motorcycling Blogger

August 9, 2006 by Mike

Alta - which feels southern enough to fry chicken, but is still north of Murmansk.

Route: Berlevag (by boat to) Honningsvag - Nordkapp - Hammerfest - Alta

I wasn't disappointed by Nordkapp - North Cape, "the northernmost point in Europe."

Nobody ever says that.... but I do. Find out why, in today's exciting episode....

---

The journey on the M/S Nordkapp need not detain us. Just because I broke my rules, there's no need to tell you all about it. (It was great.)

I was decanted at Honningsvag at 5.30 this morning, along with most of the passengers on the boat. They were being bussed straight up to Nordkapp -- North Cape -- and back to the ship. In an innocent attempt to have Nordkapp to myself I detoured with a ride out along a short coastal spur to a dreary hamlet called Nordvagen.

So when I got there the buses would just be leaving and I'd have it all to myself. In the early morning sunshine that was already starting to warm me up.

Wrong. And wrong again.

Not only were the buses still there, so was half of Germany. Line upon line of camping wagons in the car park at Nordkapp. At least, I think that's what they were. In the fog, the cloud and rain that hung steady and miserable over the north half of the island, they looked for all the world like squadrons of rectangular alien landing pods, (I hadn't slept well) or strangely metallic gorillas in the mist. Hundreds of them.

There's something disturbing, to me, about the way many people who want to be 'a bit different' end up being exactly the same. Betcha those wagoneers scorn holidaymakers who spend their summer on the beach: "Why don't they go off and do something for themselves?" Their children all rebel against The System and end up buying merchandise that their favourites bands.. I mean 'corporations trading as music groups in order to capture the lucrative teen market'.. get made in sweatshops in the Far East, packaged and sold to them by the ultra-corporate music industry.

Back to the fog. I could hardly see the end of my nose, let alone the look-out from Nordkapp. Was I disappointed? Not a chance. By which I mean Yes, it's a disaster of a place. A crass modern confection of a construction. Moneymoneymoney. Souvenir this and souvenir that. Pay to enter. Buy this. Mastercard Visa American Express.

The other silly thing about Nordkapp is -- it's neither one thing nor the other. It wants to be the northernmost point in Europe - but isn't. Svalbard/Spitzbergen is a Norwegian archipeligo hundreds of miles north of here. It has permanent settlements. It's Norway. It's Europe's northernmost point. So, Nordkapp gets promoted as the northernmost point in mainland Europe - but isn't. it's on an island, connected to the mainland by a 6km tunnel. It's all a lot of fuss about nothing.

Was I disappointed? By the lack of view, the commerciality, the meaninglessness? No. Because I'd been warned. I got exactly what I expected. (That's why I love Los Angeles - huge smoggy backstabbing paranoid car-obsessed, look-obsessed, money-obsessed Los Angeles - because it is exactly what I expected it to be.) And more -- I'd also been told there wasn't much of a view at Nordkapp. I got better than that - I got no view at all.

I still the the tourist thing, and stood at Europe's northernmost point. Before being elbowed aside by a posse of German wagoneers.

--

You have to bear with the marketing up here: "The world's northernmost brewery" (Tromso); "the world's northernmost microbrewery" (Honningsvag); "the world's northernmost Carmelite nunnery"; "the world's northernmost 18-hole golfcourse"; "the world's northernmost 9-hole golfcourse"; "the world's northernmost campsite" etc etc.

All well and good, but "the world's northernmost funeral directors", also in Honningsvag. Surely, by then, you don't care?

---

I didn't stay in Honningsvag or, more to my surprise, in Hammerfest, "the world's northernmost town." It felt like I would be betraying Berlevag by staying somewhere else so far north. I hadn't expected to feel like that anywhere en route: indeed, I hope I don't get this again and again. After all, the idea is to see as much (or as little) as I want. One lovely moment: as I wolfed down lunch in a caff in Hammerfest, an Englishman introduced himself, having seen the bike parked outside. Chris has been here for 11 years, driving the fish around (they never tip, apparently) and couldn't conceive of leaving. He knows Gary in Berlevag -- was stunned that I did too! -- but didn't know until I told him that they were both born in Battersea. There's a pun there somewhere.. batter... fish.. sea... but danged if I can be bothered to try and find it.

Unlike my chum in Berlevag, Chris has taken to the language. So much so that he peppers his English speech with Norsk words when he can't huske the English. If you see what I mean. Another sterling chap.

Comments

Leave your comment

Back to Top

RSS feed | What are feeds?