Day 6: Don’t move!
0 km and 0 m climbing
Today is a rest day. No packing. No cycling. The aim of the day, recuperation and mental preparation for the next etappe: Nordkapp – Tromso.
The kitchen of the camp site gives me shelter to read and to write. And to keep the inner body satisfied as well.
I follow the walking trails without expectations, which bring me to some famous view points like Kirkeporten, an natural arch. From here the Horn of Nordkapp is visible. A rhino structure in the cliffs. With imagination, the world is double as fun to watch.
The sea is a mirror. Only disturbed by some sea birds. The silence is remarkable. The sun has her moments.
A nice spot for contemplation.
Skarsvåg is proud to be the (self declared) most Nordic fishermen village in the world. Fisherboats can be found everywhere. The best skippers are ashore, but in Skarsvåg even those people have a boat.
The clouds make the landscape look like a Dutch painting.
King Crab, the full experience
There are two out of three restaurants open on a monday in Skarsvåg. Both serve King Crab. I decide this would be an ideal place to try it once. And to eat local.
I walk from the campsite to ‘Nordkapp Jul & Vinterhus Heidi Marie Ingebrigtsen’ around 18 o’clock. To enter a special world…
The entrance appears to be an all-year Christmas shop. And by extension, the whole restaurant is covered with a Merry Christmas blanket. A special August experience which i thought was reserved for Australians only.
The restaurant is completely empty. An elderly woman who seems to be carrying a weight on the shoulders, is shuffling around in the open kitchen. Boiling Crab legs in a big pot.
I ask if it is possible to have dinner. She looks at me for a while and sighs. “Only King Crab” she responds when she turns het attention back to the cooking pot. That’s fine, that’s why I came. “take any place you want” she instructs me.
While she puts an enormous Crab on my table, she sighs again and start to tell about a bus of 40 people from a cruiseship which made a reservation. “Sometimes they come, sometimes they don’t”. None of the outcomes seems to enthuse her.
When I kindly ask for instructions to process the Crab legs the best way, she looks a moment to me as if I asked how I have to ride my bike. As she holds my gaze, she pulls with sudden force a leg from the Crab. Grabs in one move a pair of scissors, cuts the leg in pieces before my eyes, drops the result on my plate. “Don’t eat the hard parts”. And she shuffles back to the kitchen.
Subsequently, she refuses everyone who enters to ask if they could eat Crab this evening. With the story of the potential bus with 40 people at 19 o’clock.
So I remain the only person in the restaurant eating a kingsize sea monster. I feel the looks of the people who have to leave again.
Around 19 o’clock she seems to surrender and allows two tables to take place. To start the same story of the uncertain bus.
And then the bus arrives. I grab the moment to promptly ask for the bill. I leave the Christmas vibes before the real showtime starts.
A full experience, worthwhile to put in your travel schedule. The Crab was delicious. And however the prices seems high at first glance, some research afterwards learns me that it less than 50% of the price back home. And most of the labour, you have to do it yourself.
