Ski and Paddle Norway 2009

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Today I got up early as I had to action everything I had been thinking about over the weekend. After breakfast I went out into sunny Kirkenes. The first job was to go round the sports shops and see if I could find some smoke flares.

This proved to be very difficult. I went from shop to shop but nobody could really help. It seems you needed a license to sell them and nobody had the license. Eventually after 3 hours I gave up.

I then went back to a sports shop and bought a petrol stove¸ a couple of bottles and some clean petrol. This stove was heavier than the gas stove, which I will also take, but burns far hotter without giving out condensation. Its heat output is 3000 watts so it should warm the tent in no time and dry clothing quickly. I now have my bigger Macpac Olympus tent which is heavier than the Macpac Minaret but gives me much more room. It is also an older and better quality tent.

After a few other items I then went food shopping. It took a few hours to buy all the food and cart it back to the hotel. In the end I only bought food for 9 days. It was still a considerable pile. Back at the hotel I packed it up into 24 hour packs so each evening in the tent I would open another pack which would contain dinner, the next day’s breakfast and lunch. This way if I took the first day’s lunch I would be able to be out for 10 days. I packed it into 3 dry bags with each one weighing about 6 kg. I had not been too careful with weight and volume, as I usually keep each day to less than a kg.

I phoned to confirm my transport again and all that seemed to be in order. I had already been to the Hurtigruten ferry terminal and paid for the bike to return to Mehamn with this ferry. I would use another bike to get to Grense Jakobselv.

Then it was off to the post office to see how much I could pack into my rucksack. It seemed I could send up to 25 kilos which was more than I was expecting. This was good news as I could send everything I did not want back to Oslo in one go.

In the evening I went to have another pizza. I heard the staff at the pizzeria speaking Kurdish so I threw a few Kurdish words in myself. They were surprised and wanted to know why I could speak a few words. I told them that some 25 years ago I had spent a couple of summers with some Kurdish pastoralists as they moved around the mountains of south east Turkey in their black tents and herds of sheep and goats. When I came to pay they said it was free.

Back at the hotel there was more paperwork to do but I managed to get to bed before midnight. I had pretty much everything in hand and tomorrow I could spend the day packing the drybags and moving everything from the hotel down to the locked store which Stein at Kimek had made available.

It had been quite a tiring day. There was a lot of walking about and a lot of decision making in the shops. There were too many options which caused some dithering and mental juggling.

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Again I overslept partly due to the dark room and partly due to the fact that I did not get to bed until 0230 last night. There were a few other guests at breakfast including two men from Bodo who would be here a couple of days doing a construction job.

One of the Bodo men was a keen sailor and had a share of a very traditional 42 foot Nordlands boat. These boats have a large square sail, and this one also had a rare topsail. It is an iconic boat and quite reminiscent of the Viking boats. He showed a 10 minute film of the boat on his laptop from a trip to Brest in Brittany last year for a traditional boat gathering. It was a beautiful craft.

After that I returned to the mini laptop to try and resolve some other problems with the website. After two hours I failed so I gave up. I also had a vast amount of emails to write and pretty much spent the rest of the day doing that.

By the time evening came I felt the whole day had been frittered away in front of the screen. Tedious and uninteresting but I felt I had a grasp on pretty much everything now and should be able to update the website from the laptop using the phone as a modem. If that failed or I ran out of batteries then I could always revert to plan B which was to use the phone again to type and send updates on.

I went out for anther pizza in the evening and the returned to write the blogs for the last two days which had got swept under the carpet. Tomorrow I would purchase most of the missing equipment and then go through everything I had to make sure I had packed tent pegs with the larger tent for example. I would also purchase most of the food for the next fortnight which should see me back to Mehamn again. Finally I would start packing all the equipment and food into the assortment of some 15 dry bags I had and try and establish a system.

Packing the boat and doing some last minute outfitting would hopefully happen on Tuesday. I would then be ready to have the boat moved the 60 km to Grense Jakobselv, which is Norway’s border with Russia, on Wednesday. I myself would have to walk or cycle to the border on Wednesday. It all seemed to be going according to plan so far which I view with nervous satisfaction.

It had been a boring but useful day. It had rained heavily most of the day which made my digital marathon slightly easier to accept. I was now pretty much up to date with all the paperwork.

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I overslept in the dark room and did not get up until 0900. It did not really matter as I had the whole weekend to do a small list of things. Breakfast was adequate and the coffee was good.

The first thing I wanted to do was just to amble around Kirkenes and see what the shops had and find out where I could get some equipment. I also wanted to get some ideas for food which would do me for a two week stretch. The equipment included a petrol stove, foam mattress, some maps, AA batteries, and if possible a smoke flare or two.

It was a lovely warm day as I set off. The hotel was pretty much in the centre of Kirkenes so everything was very easy and convenient. I ambled around with the relaxed air of someone on holiday, which I suppose I was for a couple of days. I pretty much located everything I wanted and got some ideas for food by the time the shops started to close for the weekend around mid afternoon.

The next thing I had to do was to get to grips with the website. I had pretty much forgotten a lot of the procedures to upload photos and also to publish stuff onto the blog. For most of the skiing trip I had written everything on my phone and sent the text and some photos to Richard who dealt with it.

I started on this in the late afternoon and slowly managed to work out what to do. I took a pause for a cheap pizza meal and then returned to the mini laptop in the evening. Slowly I started to put on some higher quality photos from the second half of the ski tour and the cycle. These photos came from my compact camera rather than mobile phone camera.

I should have remembered my law about computing which is that everything takes five times as long as you had hoped. However I worked out an efficient workflow and managed to process and publish some 100 new photos and arrange and label them. The trouble was it was 0200 by the time I had finished. Still it was a good job done.

It had been an easy relaxed interesting day which just got a bit problematic when I started computing. However these problems soon sorted themselves out and I managed to achieve what I wanted in the end.

Distance 42km | Time 3.5hrs | Ascent 440m | Descent 450m

Again I had difficulty writing the blog last night and only managed half of it before my eyes felt too heavy to continue. As a result I had to do it this morning after the huge breakfast of bacon and eggs. I eventually left the hotel at 1030. It was a beautiful warm day with the sun out and no wind.

The first challenge was the hill out of Nieden. It was only a 150 metre climb but it took a good half hour and I had to take my hat and jacket off half way up. The descent down the other side took me into Munkelvdalen, at the head of Munkfjorden.

This fjord was very shallow at its head where the river Munkelv flowed in. A bit further north the river Neidenelv flowed into the fjord also in a vast shallow delta which just about stretched across the fjord. These two areas are shallow enough to be covered and uncovered by the tides. So the whole area is brackish. This together with the nutrient rich deposits carried down into the deltas by the rivers it meant the area is excellent for silt dwelling organisms.

These organisms provide a rich feeding ground for waders, ducks, geese, and many other different species observed here. Some species are able to spend the entire winter here without migrating. Of particular interest are the 400 or so black throated divers and the 100 red throated divers which gather here in the spring.

Coastal scenery approaching Kirkenes with NeidenfjordOnce the road passed the delta it continued north up the fjord. There was remarkably little snow now and it really felt like spring but I could not see any buds on the birch trees yet. There was a nice view out to the large Skogeroya island, which split the fjord into two. Along the coast here were huge rafts of eider ducks.

Then there was the second climb of the day up to about 100 metres. This climb was quite dull compared to the fjord and went past Kirkenes Airport before the descent to Langfjorden. This fjord was topped up by the sea at high tide and emptied over some considerable rapids at low tide. It was low tide when I passed and there was quite a flow of water gushing out into the bay.

From this spectacular rapid there was the final climb up to the satellite town of Hasseng and then the descent down to Kirkenes. Kirkenes was much bigger than I expected, it was perhaps the biggest town I had been in all year. I sped down the hill to the centre where the hotel and Kimek shipyard was.

I saw the shipyard from a distance. It was difficult to miss it. It was by far the biggest building in Kirkenes and the only landmark needed. The hotel was also easy to find. I had been warned about the Barents Frokost Hotel wherever I went in the last week and was expecting the worst. It was by far the cheapest in Kirkenes. However I was pleasantly surprised and it had obviously cleaned up its act which earnt it a reputation as a dive for Russian sailors. It suited my purposes perfectly to prepare for the kayaking trip.

I then went over to Kimek to meet Stein. Stein has been absolutely invaluable to this whole operation. Kimik is a huge concern repairing large Russian trawlers and it was recommended as a delivery address for the kayak by the Kirkenes tourist office months ago. Stein was the contact there and he would accept the kayak when it came off the lorry and store it until I arrived all on a voluntary basis. He put the kayak in a perfect location where I had full access to it all weekend in a locked shed for which he gave me the key. It could not have been better. However it did get better because he also gave me a very generous donation to the cause from some people at Kimek.

With the key and access over the weekend I went back to the hotel to sort out my stuff there before unwrapping and unpacking the boat. I received my laptop and a GPS at the hotel which had been posted to me from different places. I had hoped to paddle the coast with a 1:400,000 road map for general orientation, and a GPS to give detail when I needed for a landing or camping spot. Otherwise I would have to spend well over £1000 on 1:50,000 maps.

After checking out the hotel, which had the possibility to make food in a simple kitchen, and sorting out and putting away all my skiing and cycling gear I was ready to fill the place up with kayaking gear.

I went over to the Kimek shed and unwrapped the very well wrapped kayak. She looked superb. The finish was tremendous, the extras all looked well fitted and the shape and size were all I had hoped for. The moulds for the kayak were not even made when I ordered it so I went on what Tiderace promised the finished article would be. It was better than promised at first sight. All my equipment was inside the kayak having been shipped to Finland and then put in the finished boat to be transported up to Kirkenes.

I unpacked all the equipment and look it back to the hotel. I had the whole weekend to sort out all the pieces I wanted for kayaking and sort out and pack the pieces to get shipped to Oslo, like my skiboots, which were the only shoes I had worn all year. It would be wetsuit booties from now on exclusively.

After a pizza in the town I returned to the hotel to write the blog. This time I tried to do it on my laptop and publish it directly from there as I hoped to do on the kayak journey whenever I am camped with mobile phone cover.

It had been a great day. I was in Kirkenes united with all the equipment I needed. This had all gone very smoothly and it was a huge relief, as the scope to be waiting while something was stuck in customs was very real. The cycling had not been bad and the weather was at last pleasant.

Distance 63km | Time 8hrs | Ascent 640m | Descent 620m

I did not really feel on top form last night and had snoozed a fair bit in the evening. The result was the blog got postponed until this morning. I had breakfast at 0730 and then started on it.

As I wrote I could see the weather out of the window was not that pleasant. There was a good easterly wind with the occasional snow shower. By the time I finished the blog and had tidied up the cabin it was 1100 and the weather was still the same.

I initially cycled east for 10 km along the road. The wind was directly against me and progress was very slow. There were plenty of white horses in the fjord and the wind must have been a good force 4. It took a good hour to do the 10 km to Byluft village. The wind was sapping my strength and the overcast sky was sapping my spirits.

At Byluft there was a sign for a Sea Lapp Museum. Usually I would just cycle past but thought I should go into this one. At the least it would give me a couple of paragraphs to write about. As it turned out it was quite fascinating.

The museum was owned and run by Helmer Losoa. He was a Sea Lapp and had grown up and liverd at this spot for some 70 years. During this time he had amassed, collected and beach combed a large shed full of artifacts from coastal life in Finnmark.

This area was a Sea Lapp stronghold and many of the hamlets I had been through and on the north side of this Varangerfjord were entirely composed of them.

Helmer was rightly proud of his heritage and also his collection. There were the traditional Nordlandsk boats which the Sea Lapps would fish from, old fishing nets with pieces of wood and bags of sand as floats and weights respectively. Longlines with a hundred hooks were everywhere. Glass buoys filed the boats. There was a wall with Sea Lapps costumes including his mothers dresses. Many old skis and the traditional Lapp shoe with the curled pointed toe to fit under a strap on the ski binding. There were many farm instruments and also a Sea Lapp gamme, or turf shelter. I could go on such was the richness of his collection which were just genuine articles.

After looking through this collection we went out. It was nearly a blizzard so he invited me in for a coffee. We chatted a lot mostly about the plight of Sea Lapps. He did not say but it seems Sea Lapps and River Lapps are the poor lower status Lapps while the Reindeer Lapps are the richer, higher status Lapps who consider themselves a cut above their more sedentary cousins. Such is the self appointed importance of nomads throughout history over their sedentary agricultural neighbours.

The blizzard soon stopped and I continued to Gandvik bay battling agains the wind for another 10 km or so until I got to Brannsletta, which was a geographical feature rather than a place. Here there was a turn off to Bugoynes som 20 km out on a peninsula to the east.

Brannsletta was a protected area. It was a glacial delta some 12000 years ago. As it flowed into the sea, channels under the ice deposited large amounts of sand and gravel in ridges called eskers. When the ice withdrew these eskers became exposed and further transformed by glacial lakes bursting and the erosion of sea waves. Stranded ice was also found here as icebergs and stationary glacial remnants and these left depressions seen today, often fill with water. With the ice gone the land had risen some 100 metres so the old beaches are now exposed well above sea level. It was a fascinating delta and valley for glacier enthusiasts.

From here it was still some 40 km to Neiden but thankfully the route was much easier and the wind disappeared as I went inland. The first 20 km were up this glacial valley and then over a pass before the descent to Burgoyfjord. This dairy hamlet had about 10 farms and 20 houses and was located at the end of a very steep sided fjord more reminiscent of south west Norway.

From Burgoyfjord the road followed two huge open valleys. It was sleeting heavily again but between showers I could see two vast marshes on my west. The first was Sakrismyra and the second was Ferdesmyra. Both seemed to be at least 5 km across or 25 square km. These would be very important breeding grounds for numerous marsh loving bird spices in a month or so. The latter more southerly marsh was protected as a nature reserve.

From this second marsh there was an easy descent to Neiden. There was a spectacular set of rapids crashing over rocky shelves and ice buttresses in the middle of the hamlet as the large Neidenelv river plunged towards the sea.

After many phone calls and an hour I at last managed to track down the owners of the locked hotel. It was scruffy as it had been closed for a number of years and recently reopened. Inside however it was much better but not worth the price. It was a long way that evening to Kirkenes however.

After opening the hotel he made a nice simple salmon meal. He was an outdoors man and had 23 Alaskan huskies which he raced in Scandinavias big races. We chatted about this, Norge Paa Langs and the rotting condition of Norwegian youth facilitated by oil wealth.

I went to my room at 2200 and tried to write the blog but only managed about half before my eyelids felt heavy and I had to crash out in the large but spartan room. It was still bright enough outside to read at midnight despite the fact it was overcast.

It had been a good day. I was glad I got the cultural input from the museum. The weather was not up to much though and the bicycle continued to be sore and hard work. It only had another 40 km to do me however.