Hi fellows,
I just came home at Friday evening from my road trip into northern Norway. In eight days my i30 did almost 3500 km to the odometer, having average fuel consumption of 5.2 liters per 100 km. In the north there is more hills than in southern Finland, so the 6th gear didn't have much use during the trip. Although the GD CRDi Wagon has shorter gear ratios than Hatchback, the 6th gear is still definitely an overdrive. In hilly terrain it's easier to just drive 100 km/h with 5th gear (having 2400 rpm in the tachometer instead of 2000 with 6th), which makes a big difference in ability to climb uphills. In far north where the hills got steeper and the speed limit was 80 km/h, I just drove with 4th gear to climb uphills easily and to do necessary engine braking at downhills. Sometimes I felt like the car was lacking power, but that's because of hilly terrain where your sense of horizontal level may get confused; what looks as a leveled road is actually an uphill.
There wasn't any real problems with the car. After returning home the oil dipstick still indicated full mark, but the coolant level in the expansion tank had dropped a bit from full level so I added tiny amount of coolant to top it. At the middle of the trip I noticed a screeching sound when shutting off the engine; the sound apparently came from the radiator fan when it spun down. Now I can't hear it anymore, so I suspect there was a small stone chip stuck somewhere which then eventually fell off. During the trip I noticed at least 10 DPF regens which sound a bit high, however they usually didn't last more than 10 minutes at a time.
At many areas of northern Scandinavia, there are reindeers wandering anywhere, including the roads. During the trip I saw them at least 20 times. In some areas you can't drive more than 10 minutes without seeing them, and in some other areas you may drive many hours until there's suddenly one in the middle of the road. Reindeers are very dumb animals; they don't have a slightest clue about being careful with cars. Unlike mooses, they don't usually run suddenly into the road; when you see them, they are either at the side or in the middle of the road. But on the other times than "usually", they can also surprise you. During the trip I had to do an emergency braking twice because of them, and unlike me, they didn't get frightened at all about fast moving car screeching into halt in front of them. Sometimes they are even reluctant to give way to cars; they may just stand and not moving anywhere, or they start running via the road in front of a car, not going into the side for a while. I can only imagine how dangerous it is in the winter, when it's dark most of the day and braking distances are very long because of snowy and icy roads.
At Lakselv, Norway. The 70th parallel just crossed, 193 more kilometers to go...
Here I'm about to go into Nordkapptunnelen, which leads from continental land into the Magerøya Island where Nordkapp is located. This tunnel is almost 7 km long and descends 212 meters below the sea level, so the first half was steep downhill and the other half was as steep one going up.
The last 30 kilometers took over an hour, because I had to stop taking pictures now and then.
Looks like the turbo will again have some spinning to do!
Here we are!
I'm queueing to buy the entry ticket, so I can then finish the last 130 meters to the parking area. My trusty old Tomtom One XL did its job again
Captured from the Nordkapp webcam: there's my i30 parked at the middle!
Anyone guess who's waving for you at the left?
It was easy to see when the webcam was taking the picture. The famous Globe monument is in the right. It was quite clear weather there, which is definitely not guaranteed. This place is often covered by a very thick fog which may last many days continually, but my quota of good luck wasn't fully used yet.
I stayed two nights at the Nordkapp Vandrerhjem Hostel in the city of Honningsvåg, which is at the south end of the Magerøya Island.
Again some spectacular mountain roads between Alta and Kautokeino
I drove into Narvik and stayed two days at a small cabin in Hærsletta Camping area.
I went up to the Narvikfjellet by this gondola lift to look the scenery from there...
The lift took me into this viewing platform and cafe, which is about 700 meters from the sea level.
That antenna there can't be so near than it looks. What would the scenery look from about 1000 meters above sea level? I don't have a hurry and the weather is good - up I go...
After about an hour of slow climbing, I reached the antenna and the view isn't bad at all. The city of Narvik lies in the left. The descending back into the lift station took only half an hour.
At the next day I went into Søsterbekk looking some trains in the mountain scenery.
The last day was a long drive from Narvik to home via Sweden. I wasn't sure if I can manage driving 1000 km in one day but I did it in about 14 hours, having three stops for food and coffee and one refuel. Despite being a great trip, I was happy to be at home again.
