NPL Day 3

NPL Day 3: Monday 19 June 2023

Rundvatnet - Fisketindelva via Nordkapptunneln

Another long morning... And now Lukas sleeping pad is definitely broken. It works for a few hours then it needs refilling.

We packed our things and walked 4 relatively fast km with music in our ears until we reached a rest area.

There we had breakfast in the wind. Kim tried her new granola mix that she made prior to the trip with peanut butter and cocoa added in. This was eaten together with some cream powder and salted peanuts. Could be a new breakfast candidate maybe!

Soon after breakfast we turned onto a smaller calmer road. When we were on this smaller road, Sarek's "Genom Eld och Vatten" played. We sang along as loud as we could and caught the interest of two reindeers who liked the song, and got closer and closer until they were almost on the road with us. Then the next song started but as we started to sing along to that song too, they turned around and ran away. Apparently they didn't like it as much.

We continued along the road for another 1-2 km until we turned off from the road completely. We then saw THE FIRST cairn that was marked E1.

Wow!

We walked on a little bit of snow and managed to find our way forward! The terrain was pretty good and it felt a little bit like we were walking off trail.

After maybe 1 km we started to descend down the valley and it was so beautiful to see the sea and mainland for the first time! We did a quick drone film and continued down, passed the water and came closer to where the valley started to be really steep.

The view was amazing, and as we looked out it felt so cool to be in this place, in this moment. We had expected today to be mainly road walking (which it was) and the short hike in the terrain to be tough, but look quite similar to before. Flat with some yellow hills. So this valley with the green steep hills and the sea in the background felt taken out of a movie, or that we were out hiking somewhere else, but definitely not northern Scandinavia. It was so amazing to walk down alongside the water.

Then, before we were back on the road, we took a quick little rest lying down.

For the next road walking part we put headphones in our ears again. This part passed rather quickly and soon we reached the rest area before the North Cape tunnel. Here we had a nice 2.5 hour break, had dinner, used the bathroom and enjoyed ourselves in the sun and just filled up on energy before going in.

We also talked a little with two German cyclists that had just biked through the tunnel.

And just before we left, a woman came by and asked us if we wanted beer. Lukas was really happy about that!

Then it was time for the tunnel. We were a bit nervous but excited as we entered. At first it was mainly exciting being in the tunnel, we sang and laughed as we went inside.

Then we walked steeply down into the abyss. When we properly started to walk it quickly got a bit tiring and felt neverending. When will the tunnel start going uphill? When are we half way?

Luckily we had a podcast in our ears as company because the tunnel was way too noisy so we couldn't speak to each other at all.

There was luckily not much traffic, because when vehicles passed you heard them for a really long time and they were incredibly loud. It was also a bit scary when some of them drove past really fast. There were also big fans in the ceiling that made a brutal amount of noise.

After almost 45 minutes the tunnel sloped upwards, and it immediately got tougher. It felt warmer, and we became more thirsty, but we had to keep from drinking too much. Both because we didn't have much water left, but also because that would mean we would need to go to the bathroom which was not possible until we were on the other side of the tunnel.

After what felt like forever, despite the interesting podcast, the tunnel started turning left and right, and we could read the numbers on the wall saying we were close to the end. When we finally saw daylight again we were so relieved.

Luckily there were great tent spots just outside of the tunnel. Lukas found a good spot but Kim found some dead foxes just below, so she wanted to camp further away and not just beside the corpses. We counted as many as 9 (!!!) fox corpses!