Travelling to the Varanger peninsula Mar 1 2018

This article is part of the series “2018-03: Varanger peninsula”.

Day 28 of my winter journey 2018

Yesterday Annika and I said good-bye to our friends Chris and Ørjan who live near the Snowhotel in Kirkenes. We wanted to continue to Vadsø on the Varanger Peninsula for an overnight stay. After breakfast, packing and saying good-bye we left at 11 o’clock. We followed the road 885 coming from Bjørnevatn and turned left into the E6 in direction Alta/Narvik. Right before the turnout to the airport we came to a stop. Some cars before us had stopped, one driver talking to a policeman. The other cars turned and we stood in the front. There we spotted a huge road sign “Closed, info telephone 175”.

The policeman told us that the E6 had been closed for some hours due to an avalanche that had to be blasted away. That could take some other hours. The E6 is not only the main road through Norway, it’s also the only way from Kirkenes to the Varanger Peninsula. So we returned to Kirkenes.

We ate some lunch, visited some shops and the library and waited for the road to be opened again. After some time it looked like the road would be opened round 14:00 so we gave it another try, were stopped again and told that the snow removal could take some more hours. We returned again, this time to our friends house ready to stay.

We went to the Snowhotel and told Chris about the road closure. Just after we told her that we would stay for another night the website informed us, that the road was usable again. I took a picture of the beautiful entrance hall made of snow and ice by a Russian artist, …

… we said good-bye one more time and took the very same roads again a third time. This time we were lucky, the road was opened and completely free of snow. We followed the E6 to Varangerbotn where we took the E75 to Vardø. Some hours later we were in Vadsø where we had our first couchsurfing experience.

Couchsurfing is a platform where people can host other people for free. It’s both great for finding a place to sleep and interesting people to meet. Our host, Nils Õun from Estonia was a really great host. He’s a professional cook and he made us a creative and gorgeous dinner. We talked and talked many hours and Annika and I were really glad to had the opportunity to meet him. Just a snapshot of the best chicken I ate in the last years, part of his dinner:

As I mentioned before was Nils a great host. Aitäh, Nils!

(Sneak preview: today we continued to Kiberg where we’ll stay for some nights. One of the nice and special places on the Varanger peninsula.)