Mission accomplished. Today was the day, and what a day. Definitely one of the best in my life. But let’s start from the beginning.

Yesterday, I went to bed early as there was no usable Internet connectivity. The night was kind of tough due to the hard camp ground. Everything in the morning went smoothly though, and I hit the road around 10:20. Based on the last days, I chose a rather warm set of clothing, long bike pants and a warm long sleeve shirt beneath the bike jersey. This was a bit pessimistic as it became a quite nice late-summer day.

The landscape along the coast was just breathtaking, and it felt like I did a photo stop every 500 meters. Frequent kilometre signs marked the way.

Even here, Reindeer were a frequent occurrence.

This was the first of multiple tunnels along the way. It gets really cold in there.

Crossing a plane not directly at the coast, I even caught some back-wind around kilometre 54 and could comfortably drive over 30 km/h with peaks over 50 and 60 km/h.

Then I arrived at the North Cape Tunnel, 6.9 km up to 10 % grade, reaching down 212 m below the sea level. I read about this before and was really curious about passing it.

First, I put on some more bike clothing layers. Today’s previous tunnels, just cutting straight through the mountains, were already freezing cold.

Full-Ninja, ready to tunnel.

There are no pictures from inside the tunnel, I rode it without stopping. There is no bike lane, only small pedestrian stripe at the side, and frequent lay-bys. The first half riding down-hill is real fun: 65 km/h without effort, and tears of cold and joy running sideways towards the ears due to the airflow.

There wasn’t much traffic, so cars could easily pass by and I didn’t feel like a traffic obstacle. The weirdest thing in there is the acoustics. When a car approaches from behind, it sounds like a train, or a huge, loud truck is coming in fast. It’s hard to tell the distance or whether something is coming from behind or is ahead. The only thing you can do is stoically keep driving, ignoring everything else, as you can’t do anything any way. The funny thing then is, after the sound getting louder and louder, while you firmly grab the handlebars to prepare for getting overtaken by something huge, a tiny car passes by.

The second half is tough, really tough. Around 3.4 km with 9 to 10 % of inclination, straight forward without any flat in-between. There are distance markings every few meters on the wall. The warm cloth are necessary, but up hills I felt the sweat running down my back. The air quality in there is bad, felt like loosing some life-span from breathing in there. After 25 minutes, I got out at the other end and took the warm cloth off and a short break.

Not far away there was Honningsvåg, the last town before the North Cape, and closest stop of the Hurtigrouten cruise ships. The last stronghold of civilisation before the North Cape.

I arrived at Honningsvåg after roughly 5 hours around 15:20. I checked my options for accommodation tonight. There are two camp sites around town and a hostel next to the road. I checked prices and reviews, and decided to go for the hostel. I checked in, got the key, organised an early breakfast and got a three-bed room for myself as it was late in the season. The staff lady was very friendly and caring. I highly recommend the place (Vandrerhjem). With everything set for the evening, I continued for the final 30 km to the North Cape, that’s 1:30 hours with a 20 km/h average.

Shortly after Honningsvåg, there’s a notable climb, but I expected that as the North Cape itself is 307 m above sea level.

What I did not expect was that it went up and down several times. Looking at the height profile, it basically gets completely down and up again once more, but there are some small climbs and descents, which make this part psychologically tough. The 1:30 hours estimate became a 2:20 hours reality. But at the final stage of this tour, that’s just a minor inconvenience.

Roughly 8 hours and 130 km after starting in Olderfjord, or 28 days and around 3320 km after starting in Berlin, I arrived at the North Cape.

I slowly manoeuvred through the unstaffed entrance, across the parking lot, past the Nordkaphallen building, and got off the bike. And there it was, the end of the road, the end of Europe (EoE), Barents Sea ahead.

I enjoyed the moment for a good while, then slowly noticed how hungry I was. Yesterday and today, I did not manage to go shopping, as shops were closed. While I still had enough supplies in general, I was running low on sweets. But I spared two chocolate bars for the occasion.

I was not alone there, but the parking lot was empty, and the only people there were a group from Germany that arrived with a bus from Cologne. For them, I was kind of an attraction. I had some nice chats with a few of them, but wouldn’t have minded to be the only person there. I can only image how crowded the place must be during main season from the size of the parking lot.

One older lady there told me how she was here many years ago in 1966, shortly after the snow and when there only was a sand road. By then, there also was a bike rider who just arrived after a long trip – quite the déjà vu for her. Again, I guess during main season, there are several bike riders arriving every day nowadays.

The cliffs go 300 m down to the Ocean. The Nordkapphallen, hosts a museum, souvenir shop, restaurant, cafe, post office, and the worlds northernmost ecumenical chapel.

After most people from the bus tour retreated to the Nordkapphallen, a small remaining group was nice enough to make a proper finishing photo.

At some point, I went to the Nordkapphallen too, and prepared my body for the getting back to Honningsvåg. The friendly Polish bus driver of the German group offered to drive me back, but I actually preferred a relaxed ride back during the long-lasting sunset.

Beside the iconic globe sculpture, there also is the Children of the Earth Sculpture, with motives designed by seven randomly selected children from across the world.

Nordkapphallen from the front. Buses seem to arrive hourly.

Time for the last part of the last stage: Back to Honningsvåg.

On the first long descent, I outran a car with around 53 km/h on average.

Fourth time during the trip, where I really needed my lights.

Back in Honningsvåg, I tried to go shopping, but like in Olderfjord, and unlike the rest of Scandinavia: no opening hours on Sunday.

When I arrived at the Hostel around 21:30, I prepared everything for the bus-ride tomorrow, ate my last travellunch, and had a long talk with a traveller from Germany. He was an nice guy  who re-did a road trip from 40 years ago with his car.

I got to bed late and had to get up around 5:00 to pack everything and get the first bus at 6:40 to Alta.

Looking back, I really got lucky. I mostly had great weather, including today. My body mostly played along quite well, apart from the deaf fingers and the butt-pain during the first week. I didn’t have a single flat tire for 3350 km. The only major bike-failure was the rear sprocket which did cost me one day, but without that incident, I wouldn’t have had the pleasure of meeting the nice people at Råneå, and less time for regeneration. During the whole tour, I paused for just two days, as I was waiting for a bad weather day to do so. One day later, and I would have gotten into steady rain for the next two days. I can only repeat: lucky me.