Polar Challenge Blog

When we broke camp this morning the last thing we expected to encounter was the Artic, we thought we had done that when we crossed the Arctic Circle. For the first few miles things were fine and then suddenly in our view looming mountains covered in snow loomed in our direction.

We thought we had done all the tough stuff and that this was the easy way home but infront of us was the mother of all mountains and the AI Robot inside our Sat Nav was insisting we cross it to get to Bergen. So onwards we went, New Blue has climbed 8% and 10% incline so this would be easy, then we saw the sign … 16% climb. New Blue almost fainted and as she went through the gears the climb to the top seemed endless, we climbed and climbed and climbed. As we did the snow around us was getting deeper and in some parts was 10 feet thick. We couldn’t believe it and so had to stand next to it for a photo. Later on we saw snow about 15 feet thick and in some places the snow had been carved through to clear the road. When we reached the top of the mountain we thought all our woes were over.

The rain was now teaming down the wind howling and the roads no longer had barriers and driving around them with a sheer drop into a frozen lake was rather alarming, especially with the way large camper vans would hurtle towards you taking up all the road.

As we descended we saw another sign stating a 16% decline, and just to add spice, there were sharp hairpins galore as the road weaved its way down the mountain. The little brakes on New Blue struggled to stop the car and despite the conditions it wasn’t long before they started to smoke - quite literally. We pulled over to let the brakes cool down and with Ole Blue bursting into flames recently, the site of smoke from a Reliant alarmed me greatly though Geoff seemed quite cool about it. Once the car had cooled we continued our descent and due to the sharp hairpin bends had to keep applying the brakes and it wasn’t long before we could smell them cooking again. By the last hair pin the brake fluid must have been boiling as I put my foot on the brake peddle and it went straight to the floor. Luckily the descent levelled out and keeping the car in second - third gear saw it safely down.

The next few miles were rather pleasant straight roads with two ferry crossings. By the second the rain was absolutely torrential and all the spray had got into New Blue and it was starting to cough and splutter. Luckily Geoff had a can of damp start and whilst on the ferry crossing sprayed the engine and it had a complete new lease of life. The road then took us back on top of another mountain where the snow was just as deep though thankfully the declines were long gradual ones.

The scenery has been absolutely stunning, from lush forest with the most amazing water falls crashing down the rocks to frozen lakes. When we crossed the Artic circle it was nothing like this, today really did feel like the artic and we have decided that if you want a white knuckle ride, cross the mountains in Norway with smoking brakes.

We are now in a rather wet but pleasant camp site 30 miles from Bergen. Geoff is in the kitchen cooking diinner and I’m sitting her doing the update … :o)

We will stay here for a couple of days now and explore then for the last night camp in Bergen to get the ferry back to the UK.

Elvis.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 20th, 2008 at 11:13 pm and is filed under The Journey. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.