16th June to 2nd July 2023

I can’t quite remember when this rally was first proposed but, like a lot of other things, Coronavirus got in the way and it was postponed for quite a while. Last year the organisers, Bespoke Rallies, started promoting it again so we very quickly put in an entry.

Way back in 2013 you might recall that we did a huge rally in S America from Buenos Aries to Usuhaia at the southern tip. Despite what our friends in New Zealand might say, we did drive the most southerly race circuit in the world at Rio Grande on Terra del Fuego and finished up at the end of Ruta 40, the most southerly road in the world. Naturally when the White Nights was proposed we had no hesitation to go it as it drives as far North as you can in the world to Nord Kapp (North Cape) at the very top of Norway.

Some of our friends drove their open pre-war car another rally up that way a while ago and even in mid summer it looked decidedly cool and wet so we made the decision to renovate an old MGB GT that we have for this trip. Doors, windows, a heater and even a roof will be quite luxurious.

8th June 2023

Sadly we have decided that the new MGB GT won’t be ready in time. There were too many snags and delays; to be honest at times, it felt like the car was fighting me every step of the way. It is very nearly completed. The engine is in and the interior is very nearly completely trimmed but the biggest problem was the wiring. Despite promises it just wasn’t going to be done in time to let me finish the job.

So, like 2018 when the Talbot wasn’t ready, we’re going to take Penny’s wee Audi TT. It’s a bit of fun and besides, there’s no competitive element to this trip.

Our baggage is nearly all ready and I’m relaxing for a few days after the hectic re-build sessions before we take the first of (very) many ferries next Tuesday.

13th June 2023

At last we’re on our way. 11:30 sailing from Belfast to Scotland then a very warm (hovering around 30C most of the day) and mostly stress-free drive for about three hours to our hotel for our first night on the road. The ferry will be only the first of a great many over the next three weeks. The next one tomorrow night to Holland then another the day after inside Denmark just to get to the start!

To explain the pictures above: last Saturday Penny picked up a couple of Danish Pastries as a treat with morning coffee so I called that “Rally Training Pt1” in a post on the rally’s WhatsApp page. The other one is a shot of the menu on the boat and decided that Swedish Meatballs could be “Rally Training Pt 2”

17th June 2023

Not so hot or sunny today when the rally started this morning with a bit of a trek on motorways to get out of Denmark and into Sweden’s hinterland as efficiently as possible. It didn’t take us long to cross “THE BRIDGE”. If you are a fan of Scandi Noir (subtitled Euroland cops ‘n robbers shows on BBC 4) the this will mean something to you, if not then the quickest explanation is that one of the first dramas began with a body found on the bridge, exactly half way between Denmark and Sweden so two police forces were involved to complicate matters.

Once away from Malmö, we were quickly into the forests, enjoying mostly empty roads and occasional long sweeping gravel sections. Incidentally, since leaving UK we haven’t seen a single pothole of any description and to be honest, the roads are almost unbelievably smooth and well engineered.

Lunch was at a forest outdoor pursuit and sculpture centre (excellent) and here we are now in a very super cool, ultra trendy city centre hotel in Växjø, about 330 Km from the start.

Just as we finished the last gravel section a warning light came on and it seems that, despite Audi Belfast’s attention last week, they didn’t top up the oil. Petrol stations here are mostly un-manned, automatic pumps so finding engine oil turned out to be a bit traumatic until we finally came to the ‘big city’ where a top-up was carried out and a spare couple of litres bought too. I don’t think there’s been any damage done. The day finished a bit grey and overcast with a few spots of rain.

The roadbook has been ‘mostly’ pretty good and what errors there have been have been picked up quickly. All the cars are also carrying a GPS tracker and if you really want to, you can see where we all are during the day here: https://bespokerallies.com/rally-live-white-nights/

Tomorrow we’re heading North again towards Vasteras.

Tap on any picture to enlarge it – 1: On “THE BRIDGE” 2: the thickish post on the left is where the body was found! 2: checking the oil.

18th June 2023

Saturday on gravel.

18th June 2023 pt 2

Not a bad view from our room tonight in Vasteras.

Today it rained and we drove. That’s about it really. We stopped for lunch at what looked like a pretty medieval village for lunch but because of the rain, it was closed.

Tonight’s billet as you can see is beside the water and seems to be one of those ultra trendy, Steam Punk establishments that has been so cleverly “designed” that it is actually useless.

We’re on the fifth floor and the first lift I jumped into didn’t go there. A guest kindly directed me to one that did. Wouldn’t it be nice for reception to tell me? BTW, that part of the lobby is so dimly lit that I couldn’t read the signs. The room too is so badly lit, one half in permanent darkness so we couldn’t find the switches and so small there isn’t enough room for us to get around once the seven cushions have been removed from the bed. There is no info sheet and when we scanned the friendly QR code, it is in Swedish. An international ‘phone call is needed to speak to reception!

Yes, I’m tired and grumpy but having to park two blocks away in a supermarket car park wasn’t very popular either when we forgot to bring everything up. Who knows, maybe it’ll turn out OK.

19th June 2023

Bit of bad news yesterday. Old chums from P2P, Samurai and other rallies are out of the running already. David & Adele have owned their Citroen for five years and conducted the rebuild remotely from Australia and Canada. Saturday was their first drive in it and it was obviously awry. Yesterday, their second day ended early with a list of mechanical problems so they’ve decided to send it home in shame. Rudi and Helga have also retired their Alvis because the front axle broke in the gravel yesterday. This car is a bit like our Talbot being a veteran of many long-distance rallies all over the world. Obviously all four are not happy but will be joining us in “Ecurie Modern” to continue with the party.

19th June pt2

Today – laundry, prepping the roadbook for the rest of the rally, take it easy – maybe snooze this afternoon.

We had a lovely lunch on the 18th floor and just as we were about to get in the lift the blooming power went out. Our hotel is a converted power station! Karma or what?

21st June 2023

Apologies for no post yesterday. Mostly a long old drive (305km) heading North West from Vasteras to Mora. Superb driving in forests with lots and lots of smooth gravel. The organisers also threw in a handful of regularities. These are very difficult for us because we don’t have a satisfactory trip with a dual read-out. The main one in the car isn’t bad but we don’t use the regular tyres any more so the reading is out by about 5%. We also use a GPS app on a ‘phone and these aren’t reliable in forests because of the restricted view of the sky. They’re also not great on mountains with lots of very close, tight hairpins but we haven’t got there yet. The test sections are measured by their unique “Virtual Marshal”, another GPS bit of kit that provides the tracking data for the web site (see my post a few days ago). It signals the start, intermediate intervals and finish of the test and again, as we don’t have suitable speed tables, we don’t really have enough to work with. Basically I’m driving to the set speed as best I can using the speedo. Yesterday we were out by 12 seconds and that left us in 2nd spot but they’re calling that a practice day. Today we’re 6th and 7 seconds adrift.

Lunch was on a lakeside sort of DIY buffet and excellent quality and value. We were told that on the last recce, the lake was frozen enough for cars to drive across.

On the way to Mora we cut out a loop and visited the famous “Red Swedish Horse” factory where they still hand make the traditional wooden toys. Penny still had her Tuesday equestrian fix – sort of.

Today took us from Mora to Ostersund. Nearly as far North as we’ve been in Iceland but still less that half the way up Sweden so there’s still a long way to go. The roads are incredible. To date I could count the number of potholes on less than the finger of one hand. There was a lot of gravel today and to be honest some of the roads today were less than perfect but amazing considering the punishment they get in the extreme weather. Last night we parked under a Lime tree so found a car wash near our coffee stop and the wee Audi gleamed again. not for long because of all the dust.

Pics – 1: Mandy doing a “Donny” impression 2: a beautiful wee country church, 3: on another ferry, 4: dusty gravel, 5: a bit like the Strangford ferry at home, 6: the driver, Aurora is navigating on her first rally for her Dad, Adrian. Here she is driving too! Not bad for a teenager!

22nd June 2023

OSTERSUND to LYCKSELE – 398Km

Very nice breakfast today in the pleasant Clarion Hotel and we were set up for a gravel morning with five regularities. To be honest, for us these are a bit pointless. The roads, even the gravel ones are excellent so it is pretty easy to keep a near constant speed. When a road is narrow, steep and has tight turns and hairpins that you have to slow down for then it is much more difficult to achieve a set average accurately. Not only that, we don’t have stopwatches and I still have to be persuaded about the accuracy of GPS trip meters, especially under trees.

Anyway, another long day but with lots of rain (some torrential) for a change. The rally all stopped at a super little lakeside cottage for coffee and then an incredible BBQ lunch. Well done – much appreciated.

Tonight we are finally in Swedish Lapland and staying at – what else – The Lappland Hotel. It looks like a resort hotel but I don’t think the season has begun yet. Our first room wasn’t cleaned properly and our second didn’t have a working flush in the loo. Third time lucky and with an upgrade in size, a quick shower and then type this up.

Pics – 1,2 & 3: Artwork on the Quay at Vasteras, 4 & 5: at the Swedish toy horse factory, 6: We must be heading North when there’s parking for Skiddoos, 7 & 8: Lunch stop today, 9: crossing into Lapland and 10: well named rubbish bin!

23th June 2023

LYCKSELE to LULEA (KALIX) 408 Km

When we set off to fill the car up the sun was bright but the air was a bit chilly. Not long after it began to cloud over and for the first time we put on warmer layers.

Coffee stop was at a lovely lady’s house and lunch was beside a waterfall. About five gravel regularities and lots and LOTS of torrential rain. Some of the standing water on the main roads was pretty serious. We met a few reindeer beside the road and a couple held us up during one of the tests.

Tonight we are at the Filipsborg historic house and we have lucked in with a luxurious suite in a delightful wooden cabin. Because it is mid summer, Penny has made a couple of green crowns for us to wear to dinner. It is a huge tradition all around the Baltic and a very big celebration. Dinner tonight is apparently, a traditional Swedish “walking” meal. Schnapps with herring to begin then keep coming back for more meats, veg and salads.

pics: 1: A bear to welcome us to lunch, 2: our room tonight, 3: the very impressive waterfall.

24th June 2023

LULEA (KALIX) to LEVI – 373 Km

What a meal last night! Three different varieties of cured herring beyond words and all the rest. Our host really pushed the boat out. Fantastic!

Today and under an overcast sky, the GPS gods weren’t playing to the same rule book as Bespoke Rallies so half of the cars didn’t seem to get the right messages from above on time, if at all. We had already decided to just drive through and had an effortless trip at between 50 and 80 kph on smooth, well graded gravel. Yes there were the odd reindeer or hare to avoid as well as small groups of houses (hamlets?) to slow down through but a very pleasant drive nonetheless. We stopped off at an Moose (Elk) sanctuary (think adult petting zoo with big deer) and made friends with the dominant stag, Oscar.

Coffee was at the maddest bric-a-brac / coffee shops on the planet where I made friends with yet another bear and shortly after we crossed the Arctic Circle (Polar Circle in local terms). The clouds were lifting so the hood came down and we motored on to a lunch stop beside another cascade with a salmon leap beside. Then flat out to cross the border into Finland and our overnight at a ski resort half way up a hill. It isn’ fully opened for the summer season so no bar but we could buy wine in the restaurant (at mortgage required prices).We don’t have a problem, what with out mobile cocktail cabinet we never travel without. After an nice enough buffet we had a very pleasant “apres drive” drink with friends om the top floor and enjoyed the vast vistas. 25 deg!

pics – 1: Oscar, 2: the Arctic Circle, 3: the cascade at lunch, 4: last night’s headgear and 5: Finland

26th June 2023

LEVI to KIRKNES – 376 Km

Apologies again – we arrived a bit too late to really sit down and look at this job.

Early on, we had a very long gravel section, about 50 Km and mostly arrow straight. Who knew the Roman Empire was here building roads? (They weren’t, honestly) In that section, taken at between 60 and 80 KPH we only saw three or four cars coming the other way and we only overtook one. Coffee was at a shack in the middle of nowhere served by a very friendly big bloke. We reckoned he had done as much custom with the rally as he might get in a week. When his open season is also probably only a couple of months, it must get pretty lonely up here.

At Inari there is a fantastic Sami cultural centre and museum. These folk are the traditional, nomadic reindeer herders and they have a surprisingly sophisticated technology and lifestyle. Well worth the visit. By the way, the mosquitos in this part of the world are very nearly as bad as the Siberian ones we encountered in 2007. Big, black, voracious and nuclear powered they are not nice at all. everyone has big weals all over any exposed skin. Even the bug repellants don’t seem to do much.

140 odd Km later we crossed into Norway and made our way to Kirkenes for the night. The Thon Hotel is right on the waterfront, beside the King Crab fishery. These are the same creatures made famous on the television. There are a couple in a tank in reception and they are individually barcoded – at over £150 Stg each, I’m not surprised. In the early evening we were taken for a trip in a traditionally hulled Norwegian river boat up stream (not really a fjord hereabouts) to see a famous saintly monk’s refuge and to get within 2 meters of the Russian border. Lots of instruction about the pros and cons of having the frontier here but it was a nice enough trip. Before leaving, some of us raised a symbolic two fingers to the realm of Mr Putin.

Reindeer steak for dinner again although mine was a bit more like well grilled, rare Dunlop tyre. Can’t win them all.

Today started quite slowly. No big distances to cover, just a five minute pootle to the Hurtigruten quay to join our B&B for the next five nights. The plan is to sleep on board overnight, disembark in the morning and drive over, under or around the mountains and meet up with it again further down the coast. It isn’t a regular roll-on. roll-off car ferry because we drive our cars onto a platform on the side of the ship and are then, depending on the tide, lifted or lowered as required to let us drive into the garage. There’s only room for about a couple of dozen cars. The vessel is infinitely more comfortable than the Belfast – Birkenhead and the lunchtime menu is excellent. As I type this at 14:30, we are out in the Barents Sea and the will make five stops at different ports before getting off again at 05:45 in Honningsvåg for our drive up to Nordkapp. We then have a huge drive to catch up again in Skervøy (I hope). In all the ship will make over 30 stops in five days before we leave it finally at Florø. Not really a ship, more of a train the way it is run.

Incidentally, and here’s a good one for a pub quiz: Which is further East? Kirkenes in Norway or Istanbul in Turkey. We are! Incidentally, I’ll not be posting videos on this trip. That’ll have to wait until we get home.

pics – 1: : powering up the river 2: another frontier, 3: no caption needed, 4: yellow post – Norway; red post – Russia.

277h June 2023

Kirkenes to Honningsvåg (by ship) to Skervøy (driving about 450 Km)

On Monday we boarded the MS NORDKAPP after a ten minute drive from the hotel. The ship has a garage, not so much a car deck and after a very quick turnaround we were off. It made five different visits during the night before we we disembarked at Honningsvåg at 5:40 for the half hour drive up to the most northerly road in the world. To be honest, there is another road further north on the island of Svarlbad but one has to take a ferry to get there. This place is accessible by any wheeled vehicle.

Never have we seen so many camper vans (RVs), caravans, top box tents, and ordinary tents in one place before. Hundreds of the things and all snoring gently as we roared up for the ritual photograph. For the first time on this trip we both had sweaters and down jackets on but at least it was dry and the wind was very light. It was also curious to look down from about 1,000ft (300m) at one of the gigantic cruise liners we see so many of in Belfast as though it were a toy.

Setting off South we each had a banana as the first part of our bereakfast (nothing on board and the NK visitor centre wasn’t open). Eventually down to the southernmost part of the island we had lots of very long tunnels under mountains and the sea as well as bridges. An early lunch at the Alta museum where we were very impressed by the ancient stone art then a short drive to a museum dedicated to the Tirpiz, a WW2 German battle cruiser that was bombed here and eventually sunk after not actually engaging in any offensife activity since it’s launch.

The roads today were mighty. Sweeping, good quality and mostly empty. Even the occasional hold-up for road works didn’t detract from on of our best drives ever.

We eventually arrived at Skervøy and an impromptu wine & crisps party in the car park as we waited for the boat to arrive.

pics – 1: Nordkapp, 2: the rally waiting to board, 3: rock art, 4: gulls nesting on the quay and 5:

.

28th June 2023

Rishoyham to Svolvaer – 302 Km

Quite an easy start this morning and a pretty decent breakfast buffet set us up for a loop of Andeya to visit the lighthouse at the North end then Norway’s space centre on the West coast followed by an entertaining drive across Langøy and finishing up in Solvær. The scenery is becoming more majestic, much as you’d imagine Norway to really look like. Huge, towering, jagged peaks with large snow fields were all around. Incredible waterfalls and pretty hamlets all linked by endless wildflower meadows drained us of suitable adjectives.

Once back on board the Nordkapp, we cleaned up and went up to have dinner with Mark and Dorinda Winkelmann and Mark and Sally Bramwall (1930s BMW and 1960s Austin Healey). after we’d helped ourselves to starters from the buffet and a glass or two of wine we all returned to select the main course but it had all been cleared! Incredible. No hint of the food service finishing early nor an apology from any sort of senior staff. I felt sorry for our poor server who did his best to get the kitchen to provide more food, to no avail, and did his best to apologise for “his seniors” Big black mark Hurtigruten – Trip Advisor will hear of this.

pics – 1: another ferry and 2: our floating B&B.

29th June 2023

NESNA to BRONNOYSUND – 333 Km

A slow day today. We stayed on board and did quite a bit of laundry. The end of the rally is in two day’s time and we then have nearly a week of travelling to get home. Shirts, underwear and trousers all went into the machines and we relaxed for a bit. After lunch I got busy with the smoothing iron.

We also passed the Arctic Circle for the second time, this time heading South. The skipper held a ceremony on the aft deck as we passed the actual point and all the passengers were offered a ritual spoonful of Cod Liver Oil to boost our vitamin D to survive the dark winter days. There was also the presentation of a ceremonial spoon! Later that night there was a celebratory five course dinner for the Hurtigruten line’s 130th anniversary. We were later given a special diploma which will probably hang on the wall of our toilet along with others from places such as the Great Wall of China and the Nasca lines in Peru.

The Arctic Circle is marked by the monument on the island behind P’s left ear.

30th June 2023

TRONDHEIM to KRISTIANSUND – 429 Km

Long drive today mostly in rain and lots of problems with matching info between the Garmin and the road book. Lots of the waypoints were hard to makes sense of but we arrived at the highlight of the day without too many problems.

The Atlantic Road in Norway is one of those marketing phenomena like the NW 600 in Scotland or the Wild Atlantic Way in Ireland. The last one has been known about for years but the other two are quite new imaginative creations. Today’s effort was quite pretty but, at the end of the day, it is still just a bridge and overcrowded with cars and RVs.

Tomorrow is the last day’s run, and a long one at that, to Oslo before we all depart for home.

The Atlantic Road

2nd July 2023

FLORØ to OSLO 500 Km

Our last trip on the MV Nordkapp last night from Kristiansund to Florø and we enjoyed a free G&T on Bespoke then were treated to a very pleasant half-hour video of the trip. I’ll post it, along with some others, when we have a copy and are back home.

Yesterday’s drive was a bit long. There were very few coffee or lunch stops and the few that we did find were closed. Breakfast buffet sandwiches in a petrol station forcourt had to suffice. More amazing Fjords and we also drove up “The Norwegian Stelvio” but unless it has shrunk in the wash, it wasn’t a patch on the real thing. Under 3,000 feet and only about eight hairpins didn’t really do it for us. We eventually made it into the Sommerro Hotel in the heart of Oslo and because of a music festival there were lots of road closeures. We didn’t receive the WhatsApp message with alternative directions to find the car park until after Penny had worked it out for herself. We pulled up in a bicycle lane outside the main entrance and dumped our bags before following the tram tracks for a bit. One of our organisers told us to turn right three times to get to our designated parking spot but that should have been four so we set off on another lap to get in.

Dinner in a huge room with a three piece jazz band on a dias in the middle sort of ruled out any sort of group “final night” get-together, but that’s OK.

2nd July 2023

Oslo to Åsgårdstrand

We had a leisurely breakfast all by ourselves as we were prevented from sitting with chums by the Maitre ‘d because “there was no room” – I reckoned the dining room was only about 2/3rds full and the twenty or so in the queue behind didn’t seem to be ushered into our wee dining room. I wonder what we did to offend?

A bit of motorway with absolutely torrential rain at times took us to Åsgårdstrand where we are staying in the faded 1930s splendour of The Grand Hotel beside the marina. This is just a stop off on our way to the ferry tomorrow so, part way along, we took the opportunity to have a look at a Viking / Norwegian folk museum at lunchtime before driving down to the harbour to inspect a handful of re-created long ships. Absolutely beautiful. We were lucky to have a chat with a great big chap who worked for the long-ship charity and he explained a lot about what they did. I also spotted an old America’s Cup 12 Metre racing yacht and she was very beautiful.

pics – 1: more car ferries, 2: another long ship recreation being built, 3: ice cream on the quay, 4: Vema III, the 12M yacht, 5: me inside a Blue Whale’s mouth (apparently the largest whale skeleton in the world), 6: me beside the Oseberg recreation, 7: Eduard Munch’s House (The Scream artist), 7: beautiful Fjords and 8: Norway’s Stelvio?

Kristiansand (Norway) to Emden (Germany) to Ijmuiden (Holland) to Newcastle (UK) to Cairnryan (Scotland) to home

Lots and lots of boring ferries, some better than others although the DFDS restaurant on the sailing to UK was remarkably good in both directions. What driving there was in Euroland was mostly pretty boring motorways. This time we decided to take the main road across the dam protecting the Ijsselmeer from the North Sea for a bit of interest. Then the storm hit! Really, really big winds, lanes closed, torrential rains and diversions everywhere. We’ve never seen so many trees blown over or so much debris across the motorways. Needless to say, the driving was very difficult and Penny had to work hard on the navigation to keep up with unscheduled diversions.

We finally arrived at the ferry port at about the due time for boarding and the queues were incredible. The incoming sailing was about four hours late and still unloading vehicles. I suppose we were about two hours late leaving and thankfully the storm (winds up to 150kph) had blown out and we enjoyed quite a placid crossing. Naturally we were a bit late in NE England so we set off with fingers crossed to try and get to the Scottish ferry on time. No stopping for lunch, just coffee and a bun on the hoof and a lot of quite rapid overtaking got us to Cairnryan in time.

That’s it, another mega rally and four new countries ticked off. Mighty landscapes, wonderful people and good companions on the road made for a memorable trip. What’s next? Finish building the MG, that’s what. After a “shake down”, maybe a trip down to Spain to give it a proper test then Marrakesh next April, but more on that later.

Here are a few videos that I only managed to process after the event: