Mission complete

We arrived in Kirkenes today and are officially done.

We didn't get our cosy Sunday trip, though. Almost as soon as we were ready to start this morning, the rain started pattering down around us. It only let up once or twice during the final five mile ride, and we arrived here cold and wet but in very high spirits.

Kirkenes is nestled on a rock that juts out into the sea. It has an almost edge-of-the-world feel to it and serves as the perfect destination for our trip. We literally can't cycle any further. We've run out of road.

At the final tally we ended up just shy of 1500 km, and that's our ten mile bus ride subtracted. It took us twelve days to cycle from Trondheim to Kirkenes, and we arrived today in great shape just in time for lunch.

We're going to take it easy today and in the morning we'll go down to greet our support crew who will be arriving by boat. We got here a day ahead of them, which is a mean feat in itself. So far we've managed to shower and eat, and I've tried to dry our shoes with a blowdrier I found in the hotel bathroom. It seemed like a good idea at first, but then the smell hit me. Imagine roasted, sour feet.

On Tuesday I'll fly back to Trondheim as Geir and my mum embark on a weeklong drive back down with the bikes and all our equipment. I think I'm going to leave the bike locked up for the rest of the summer. My ass is sore and needs time to heal.