SuperBike Magazine September 2020

North Cape, where to road ends in Europe! Not a sun holiday
destination, but a magnificent place with it’s cold and windy
weather!
61
Last strech before
Nordkapp. No forest!
On the tour we
allways have on Sami-dinner
around the
campfire in a original
Sami-tent!
1 of the 160000 lakes in Finland!
Indian bikers with
Bubbles The Biker
at Nordkapp. Bubbles
the Biker is
my dog 3,2kg and
yes has her own
tankbag!
There are lakes in every part of Finland,
but Lake Finland (south-east
part of the country) is literally full
of lakes. Finland has about 160000
lakes, many of them are so clean that
you can drink the water! According
to Mama Google, there are only 677
lakes in the whole of Africa and 27
from them are in South Africa! You
will not see every Finnish lake, but
many of them when you drive through
Lake Finland. Normally, when I am
on a motorcycle tour with a group to
Nordkapp, we stop for the first night
at a lakeside hotel with a beach in
Kuopio which is in the heartlands
of Lake Finland. The bravest bikers
can take here an evening and/or a
morning swim in lake Saimaa. Water
is never too hot!
Most of the Finnish people think
only about Finland when you ask
them about Lapland. But in fact,
Lapland is a huge area covering the
northern parts of Finland, Norway,
Sweden, and the north-west corner
of Russia. It’s is also more or less
the same area where the original
Sámi-people (people of the north)
come from. The size of Lapland is
about the same as Eastern Cape and
Free State together, about 300
000km2. Sámi people have their
own language and own culture. The
language is totally different from any
Nordic language and it has on official
status in Scandinavia! In the north,
you see Sámi also on the road signs!
The most visited person in the
north is not anyone from Sámi-people.
It’s Santa! What many bikers do
not know is, that the original Santa
Claus was born in Myra, on the shore
of the Mediterranean Sea in 300ACC,
Holy Nikolaus! Today Myra is a city
in Turkey, in the 300’s it was a city of
Roma! So the grand, grand, grand…
son of Holy Nikolaus, Santa Claus
has his headquarters in the north, in
Santa Village on Arctic Circle. This is
today also a place where every biker
stops on the way to/from Nordkapp.
Here you can meet other bikers from
all around the world, but naturally
also Santa Claus. He works here 363
days a year. Only days in the year
when he is not available, are 24th
and 25th December! If you go and say
hello to Santa, you can always wish a
new bike or bike tour or both for your
next Christmas present!
Midnight Sun
Midnight Sun alone is a good reason
to ride up to the north! Santa’s workshop
is literally on the Arctic Circle.
On the day of the summer solstice in
Cape Agulhas, the sun sets about 8
pm. Between Arctic Circle and Nordkapp,
there is no sunset for 1 month
on both sides of the summer solstice.
Especially for first-timers midnight