17-02-23 De Klinge – Hamburg (Germany) 623km

Departure from De Klinge towards Villa Vip in Zele, they are one of the charities Team Gonzo is riding for. It was decided beforehand to ride this trip together.

It is nice with extra company and at the same time reassuring should we ever have something ahead of us. From Zele it’s off to Hamburg where the rally will start collectively. The Baltic Sea Circle Winter Rally is the northernmost rally in the world, according to the organisers.

At the start we were able to meet 117 teams, eight of which were Belgian. Naturally, it clicked immediately with Kurt & Sybil from team Disco Wilma. They are driving the trip in a Land Rover Discovery. It was also nice to meet Louis & Lieze. They will drive the trip with a Toyota Hilux and will take an American Akita who listens to the name Wilma.

18-02-23: Hamburg – Østerlen region (Sweden) 588km

Saturday in Hamburg we got up with rain. We had a déjà vu feeling with last year when we attended the start. To previous edition’s article. At check-in, we received our bracelets and the roadbook.

Not a roadbook with dotted arrows like at many rallies. Nay, just indications in which region is best to stay so as to be able to leave the day after. The roadbook also describes what might be worth stopping for along the way. and of course it also describes the daily tests.

There was plenty of time to check out the other teams. There were a few that we thought were a lot more challenging than Big George. One Dutch team drove a DAF … there was also an old MG, a 1967 Volvo Amazon and many other old-timers. Our respect is endless!

Of course, there are also some less punishing teams who were just driving new cars. Ok, to each his own but there should be something of a challenge to it we thought.

The start of the rally was around noon at the fish market in Hamburg where every car passed over the starting stage to officially start the trip. Also, of course, Big George, our 2004 Range Rover with over 350,000km on the clock.

Day one of the rally was suddenly three countries, start in Germany then through Denmark to finish in Ystad Sweden.

There are several ways to get there, for instance, you can perfectly cross by boat. We preferred to drive via the Storebaelt bridge between the islands of Funen and Zealand and the Oresund bridge between Copenhagen and Malmö.

Impressive bridges that we stopped in front of to take some photos.

The Superlative Adventure organisation always links day tasks to their rallies. The German teams usually really get into this. We left most of the challenges for what they were and tried to use that time to catch our breath over dinner.

We ended our day in Ystad where we spent our first evening in Sweden really spoiled in a Japanese restaurant that served delicious food.

19-02-2023: Østerlen region – Uppsala region 705km

This was to be the first full rally day. We had slept in a B&B where we could enjoy a good breakfast. Afterwards, we turned out to have been ripped off by our Swedish host. The man only wanted to be paid in cash and turned out to have simply charged double ☹. Maybe by accident but still …

The trip today passed Kristianstad, among others, and a myriad of lakes including Lake Vättern which is Sweden’s second largest lake.

The task of the day is to find and visit a unique car cemetery on the Kyrkö moor in Ryd. Located in the middle of a forest, this car graveyard is the last thing you would expect.

The car cemetery was owned by Åke Danielsson (1914 – 2000). A total of about 150 cars are said to lie decaying there. Because that is what happens here, the peat soil slowly gobbles up the numerous cars.

We find a VW Beetle, a Ford Taunus, Opel Cadet, Volvo PV, a Citroën 2CV and many other cars that have become quasi unrecognisable, among others.

Legend has it that Abba’s first tour bus from 1974 also rests here. We found the bus but it will remain a mystery whether it really ever belonged to Abba.

The site is always accessible but bring waterproof footwear as the ground is soggy and full of puddles.

20-02-2023: Uppsala region – Vilhelmina region 590km

According to the roadbook, the first few days would be especially tough in terms of kilometres. So we neatly followed the advice to get up early. The goal was to reach Lapland today. The route runs through endless pine forests interspersed with vast frozen and snow-covered lakes.

Meanwhile, we have been driving on snowy roads at temperatures between -7° and -16°C for two days. The Swedes regularly pass us smoothly even though we are driving 80-100km/h ourselves. When we got out, the road was so slippery that we almost collectively slipped.

The few slips we made were mainly on the roundabouts because you have to turn off and accelerate briefly there. But all in all, we and team Gonzo were not too bad.

We drove through Borgvattnet towards Strömsund where the largest bear population of brown bears in the world lives. Unfortunately, we did not spot any, hibernation surely? We did spot a few deer.

We found a nice restaurant in Junsele where we could eat delicious cod among other things. It also turned out to be a small hotel where Kurt & Sybil would spend the night.

After dinner, it was already dark but when we passed the ‘Lapland’ sign we still stopped for a photo. Fortunately, we only had to drive half an hour more to get to our sleeping place.

In the northern region, it is still dark quite early at this time of year so around 5pm most of the daylight was gone and we headed into the night.

We spend the night in a small but wonderfully warm fisherman’s cottage in Asele about 70km from Vilhelmina.

21-02-2023: Vilhelmina – Bodø region (Norway) 687km

According to the roadbook, today we can race on an ice track. Since both we and team Gonzo do not really have a sporty car, we decided to pass for this. We had also agreed beforehand to want to spend as much time as possible on the Lofoten. Moreover, we had more than 650 km to cover today.

So we drove on towards Bodø as quickly as possible to take the ferry to the Lofoten in the late afternoon. There is a boat at 4.45pm and the next one does not leave until 01.45am so you then only arrive at your destination in the middle of the night.

Today was also the day of sliding parties. So we regularly saw pictures appearing in the WhatsApp group of participants who had somehow managed to get off the road anyway. Usually without much harm but we think it was a wake-up call for many anyway. The following days the roads were no better but there were still fewer reports of slips.

The photo above was taken at a railway crossing. The railway cottage caught my eye and I insisted on taking a picture. When we got out, we had to hold on to the door of the car or we all sat on our behinds, that’s how slippery that track was.

It’s then that you realise for a moment the importance of good tyres. So a big thank you to Wim from EW Bandenservice in Stekene!

Once we left Sweden and drove through a tunnel, the landscape changed dramatically. It looked like half the snow had disappeared. Not that everything was gone, as you can see above.

From now on, the landscape also became noticeably rougher.

I spoke earlier about the daily trials the organisation asks us to do. Today was a rather challenging one. One was to buy a can of Surströmming, open it ‘in’ your car and then drive 200 km further with it.

We effectively went looking for the famous can of fermented fish but unfortunately did not find it anywhere. According to the various sellers, the reason appeared to be that the catch of that particular herring has been disappointing in recent years, making the supply very limited. And we actually think that’s a shame because even though we wouldn’t have opened it in the car we really wanted to taste this Swedish delicacy. So if you have such a tin lying around, let us know and we’ll buy it over ????.

We took the boat in Bodø towards Lofoten where we arrived after an hour and a half of cruising

22-02-2023: Lofoten – Narvik region 370km

Waking up in the Lofoten Islands is like being in ‘the books’, breathtakingly beautiful. We rented a cottage via Airbnb that was located right by the water. In the evening, we took a sauna because in many of these cottages it is simply attended. When we awoke, we were treated to stunning views. After a refreshing breakfast, we took time to soak up the surroundings. We flew with the drone to take some pictures with a different angle and then packed everything up again, because today too we had a long drive ahead of us.

Driving smoothly across the Lofoten is rather difficult. Not because the roads are bad but after every bend you see something that makes you want to stop and get out, it’s that beautiful there!

What was definitely on the plan for me was a visit to Hennigsvær. There were several reasons for this. For one, Hennigsvær is one of the older villages on the Lofoten, the first habitation was already a fact in 1556. But also the picturesque harbour and especially the northernmost football pitch intrigued me to take a picture of it with the drone. That shot was rather exciting anyway because there was a very strong wind. You can see the result above.

Also specific to the Lofoten Islands are the many fish drying plants. The wooden palisades are used to dry cod or COD as they call it here. The fish are head and gutted and tied together in pairs at the tail with a rope. They are then hung by hand over horizontally placed sticks to dry outdoors for about three months. During this period, the fish loses 80% of its weight. The fish become bone hard and have to be ‘pounded’ before consumption. Bashing is working with a wooden hammer that allows the fibres to absorb moisture again.

On the Lofoten Islands, we also regularly passed salmon farms. The rings you see above each contain thousands of fish which, although in natural waters, are confined and artificially fed. A fish farm, as they are usually called, may provide employment but it does not improve quality. As in many cases, financial gain outweighs anything else. The Norwegian salmon industry generates an annual turnover of around EUR 8 billion and something has to give way. There are many opponents who claim, among other things, that very much of the farmed fish is infected by parasites. It is not up to us to be a moralist, but we have seen a lot of these fish farms, which makes you think the next time you eat a nice slice of salmon.

23-02-2023: Narvik region – Tromsø region – Rotsund 356km

After spending the night in a Hytte overlooking the Ofotfjord, it was off to Tromsø. We had agreed to take the necessary time in Tromsø but, if possible, to continue driving for a while after the city visit.

Tromsø is the largest city in Scandinavia above the Arctic Circle and has a population of around 65,000. We arrived in the city around noon and after finding a parking space we were able to explore. There was quite heavy snowfall which produced rather unusual images. The picture above shows that snow does not always make Norwegians happy either.

The roadbook had talked about Tromsø’s library. The open building was said to be one of the most beautiful libraries in Norway. We leave the judgement on this mostly to yourself.

A second item in the roadbook was the Polar Museum. In the past, Tromsø was one of the main places where expeditions left for the North Pole. The city has a museum dedicated to this so a visit seemed inevitable to us.

The museum takes you along with the first polar explorers. It also shows that it was not exactly for wimps. The perhaps very hard existence of fishing and hunting seals is depicted in detail.

Clothing and utensils also pass in review. When you see the limited and primitive means with which these explorers undertook their journeys, it still commands respect.

On the pretext of ‘coffee is always good’, we stopped in a trendy coffee bar in central Tromsø. The coffee as well as the pastries tasted great.

After another quick stop in a shop that had a stuffed moose (unfortunately, that is the closest we got to it), we moved on to our sleeping place. We had rented a house through Airbnb near Rotsund.

Getting there at a decent hour was going to be quite a challenge as we had to take two ferries to get across.

This route passed through the Lenangen peninsula. The first ferry was no problem, in fact it was free because their payment box was not working. The second ferry left an hour later. So it was with some haste that we had to drive quite a distance through the dark on snowy roads. We were clearly not alone, a large number of cars from the first ferry were driving in front or behind us. A few minutes before sailing, we were on the second ferry.

So that was a windfall because the next ferry would be a two-hour wait.

Once ashore, it was another 20-minute drive to the house where the host was waiting for us. We soon got talking and the man turned out to have been a former ski champion in Norway.

We had also been looking for northern lights for several days but Nils managed to tell us that it would not happen next night either.

24-02-2023: Tromsø region – Alta region 323km

As we had already made it quite a way past Tromsø yesterday, we had a choice for today: either drive a very short way to Alta and look for a place to stay for the night, or continue towards Hammerfest. The choice fell on the latter with the plan to stop in Alta to have lunch and walk around for a while.

Everything is habituation they say, even driving on snow and ice gave no significant problems. Only the fresh drifting snow was sometimes annoying as it seriously limited visibility.

On the way to Alta, the landscapes were again beautiful. So we stopped regularly to take photos and flew the drone here and there.

As we drove into Alta, we were pulled over by Norwegian police. The extremely friendly lawmen asked me if I had accidentally flown a drone. In fact, they had received a complaint from someone who was concerned about this. After showing my pilot’s licence and insurance, everything appeared to be in order and we got talking to the local police. Moreover, after the chat, we were able to convince them to take a picture with all of us.

You can see the result of the drone photos above and below is the group photo with the police.

After a delicious lunch, we visited a place where people were busy making ice sculptures. Some with hammer and chisel while others were at it with the chainsaw.

We werden echter al snel verzocht om de ‘construction site’ te verlaten dus zetten we onze tocht door Alta verder.

Northern Lights Cathedral caught our attention because of its striking architecture. Unfortunately, when we went inside, a visit proved impossible at the time because a service was just about to start. So off we went again, and since we always feel like a coffee, we entered a second-hand record shop with a coffee corner. The coffee was good, the record I bought there looked OK too, but after half an hour of metal music we decided to give our ears a rest.

We also filmed quite a bit, mostly with the GoPro and a bit with the drone. You can see the result above in part one of the two videos made. The second is in the next report which we of course invite you to check out as well.

To part two. (available soon)

Be sure to visit Superlative Adventure Club’s website for this and next year’s schedule.