Finnmark..or ‘How I Came To Truly Comprehend The Meaning Of Cold’
The past 36 hours and 1025 Km have been spent crossing the Norwegian part of Finnmark to reach the furthest outpost of Western Europe, the town of Kirkenes.
Finnmark is the native Sami region that crosses Finland, Russia, and Norway….go look up Wikipedia if you don’t know you ignorant bastards.
Anyway….
Its been the highlight so far for me…desolate, empty beauty…mile after mile of nothingness and silence
I’ll avoid the superlatives but they all apply.
I drove for 4 hours straight at one point and saw no one…nothing…not even other traffic
…and this is the main Norwegian highway to the North.
I hope the pics do just a little justice….
Oh….and what did i learn about the cold?
Well…
I asked someone why there was less snowfall in the far north than say in Trondheim?
He said at 15-C… ‘its too fuckin cold to snow’
So I learnt a new thing……
I also found out:
At -20C….the satnav stops working and just flickers like an old TV with no horizontal hold.
The cellphone takes 3 min to turn on.
The CD player just won’t work
And if you accidently leave a can of coke left on the roof of the car it will freeze and explode in about nine minutes flat.
At -30C the -24C rated screenwash will turn to gum
A cheap windscreen mounted plastic thermometer which apparently can measure to -40, doesn’t….and wont ever again I might add.
The heater in the vehicle doesnt make much difference anymore, and neither does what you wear.
That you can can get frostbite on your little toe through 2 pairs of socks and some heavy duty boots
And I found out that frostbite really hurts.
And then I discovered that at -36C
Everything hurts
Nothing much works
and you wonder why you’re here.
Thats right…….-36C
Thats what i learnt.
