30 DEPARTURES TRAVEL
30 DEPARTURES TRAVEL OUT THERE Picnics are a daily pit stop while driving through the Arctic north, from smoked salmon (right) in Finland to Swiss raclette and homemade soup Frozen trees resembling giant white broccoli – one of countless out-of-thisworld curiosities on view while whizzing through Finnish Lapland “There’s no way that visiting the North Cape could ever feel this victorious if you did it on your own or during a ‘normal’ holiday” lining the shores of tiny islands lost in a theatrical landscape. The closer we get to the North Cape, the more challenging the driving becomes. White-outs, black ice, horizontal winds blasting in from the Arctic Ocean. Team DriftChicks – three thirtysomething women (with husbands and kids waiting back home) from Hamburg – are driving a pimped pinkish Range Rover. When they slip on black ice into a snowy ditch, two other teams come to their assistance and the DriftChicks quickly hit the road again. Somehow, 35 teams make it to the next rendezvous, after which we form a caravan to drive safely to the most northerly point in Europe. “There’s no way that visiting the North Cape could ever feel this victorious if you did it on your own or during a ‘normal’ holiday,” says Walter Darmstäder, who drives the entire 8,000 kilometres solo in his ’97 Skoda Octavia to distance himself from a very stressful job. Finnish Lapland means whizzing for hours at a time through empty forests. Some teams skip Russia and take a ferry from Helsinki to Tallinn, where the next get-together is planned. We cross the border, deal with some Russian paperwork and head to St Petersburg for a night on the town after days of true wilderness. We try caviar at the the elegant Kempinski Hotel, then discover hidden bars where we quaff Slavic quantities of vodka shots served with a slice of apple.
The next morning, we leave with Sandra and Frank, Team Baltic Taxi (their Mercedes-Benz is an old taxi from Berlin with more than 1.5 million kilometres on the counter) to Kolja near Tallinn where a huge wooden tepee functions as an Arctic party hub. The saunas and hot tubs make it a dreamy winter wonderland – along with plenty of Estonian food and beer. On a monochrome morning we hop over to Lithuania to visit the mind-blowing Hill of Crosses. In the evening, we meet up with Team Champagne Supernova, aka Arndt and Boris, two friends driving a 2003 Volkswagen Touareg filled with bottles of champagne. They love to drink a glass of fizz after a long day’s drive. Both men are collecting money for charity, like every other team, and hope to raise €347,000 for a clean-water project in Uganda before they reach the finish line the next day. Driving for hours across frozen, pure and virtually empty landscapes from the very north of Norway down to Saint Petersburg is a meditative experience But this isn’t a journey focused on the fundraising or even on the grand finale and farewell party along the Hamburg docks – it is all about the voyage, the experience between the first revs and the last, and the constantly shifting, marvellously majestic landscapes of wintry Northern Europe. The next Baltic Sea Circle Rally Winter Edition takes place 20 February to 7 March 2021; superlative-adventure.com 31 DEPARTURES PLEASE CHECK THE LATEST GOVERNMENT ADVICE BEFORE BOOKING TRAVEL OR DEPARTING ON ANY TRIP
