Day 45 – at Lebesby

Back in the early planning stages of this journey I estimated 7,000 miles for the round-trip. Today I reached the extremity of this course after 3,560 miles, so I wasn’t that far out.

Prior to that, we walked the Lebesby trail, which can be started where I had parked the van overnight. It was a really good couple of hours, a couple of minor peaks, fantastic views of the coast and the Arctic Ocean, and a couple of special kilometres through autumnal beech forest.

The last, and optional add on section goes around the headland, and requires the climbing of a ladder on one tricky section. I knew this ahead of time, and that Roja would not be happy. I had thought there was maybe a way round it, but that was not possible, so we retraced our steps. The rocky beach was well worth spending time on though.

I did suggest, in the visitor’s book at one of the signposts, that they advised the beach add-on wasn’t suitable for dogs..

Some of the islands just off the coast here look appealing, though I guess I haven’t seen them in winter conditions, or when a storm is blowing though. I searched the internet for any information about Rantjan, in the picture below, but couldn’t find anything. Maybe I was hoping it was for sale.. it’s my view from the van window for the last two days, I’ve been planning where to build, where for the boat to land..

I recall a lot of islands around Chiloe in Chile were for sale when I was there at extremely cheap prices, but the owner then had to develop them with at least a building.

In the afternoon I drove the hundred kilometres up to Slettnes Lighthouse. The road was quite spectacular, rising two or three times to above 250 metres. It’s some anticlimax therefore to get to a rather flat and featureless north coast. It had been a very calm day, but not here.

The kilometre or so walk was a cold one, 4C feeling like zero, and the lighthouse itself, tall for such a building at 40 metres, seemed unwelcoming until the cheery keeper approached me. He was keen for a chat, and made the point that if I thought this was cold, hang around for a few months. He had three years until retirement and was counting the days.

Since my Scottish visit last year, I’ve read a lot about lighthouses, though mainly the Scottish and Irish, the Stevenson ones. Each of their constructions has an incredible story attached to it. This was built in 1905, and actually still has a resident keeper, though with automated lights since 1995, the guy I spoke to wasn’t quite sure why. It is the world’s northernmost land based lighthouse.

Slettnes itself actually had a Stone Age community here 10,000 years ago. I wonder what they wore..