2CV-Raid Lapland 2020

18/02/2020

2CV-Raid Lapland is finished. All participating teams made it successfully to the finish. A great accomplishment. I hope you all enjoyed it 😄. See you in a next adventure!

18/02/2020

Last trip of 2cv-Raid Lapland 2020. Huskies, snow and goodbye night.

https://opavontuurineen2cv.blogspot.com/2020/02/sunday-16-february-huskies-snow-and.html

Posio - Kemi 279 km This morning we woke up with an incredible view from our window. We could sleep a little bit longer because we were in ...

14/02/2020

We drove from Ivalo To Kittilä today over beautiful roads with a bright white surface, snow loaded trees and a steel-blue sky. Beautiful!! In Kittilä we visited the Ice hotel in Snow Village with beautiful sculptures. At night, after the drivers meeting we saw the northern light 😄. This makes the raid whole 😊

14/02/2020

Yesterday’s story about snow, cold and Sami 😊

https://opavontuurineen2cv.blogspot.com/2020/02/thursday-13-february-visiting-sami.html

Skoganvarre- Ivalo 207 km View from the cabin this morning was stunning. Today we took the nice scenic route trough one of the many natural ...

14/02/2020

Another blog of one of the participants 😁

https://insidestory.nl/lapland-2020/noordkaap-there-and-back-again/

Noordkaap: There and back again 13 februari 2020 | Lapland 2020 Op dinsdag 11 februari is het moment aangebroken om echt richting Noordkaap te reizen. De voorspellingen zijn goed, de wegen zijn open. Dinsdag is onze enige taak om rustig en veilig van Alta naar Honnigsvag te rijden, vanuit waar we na...

12/02/2020

Since North Cape was still open this morning we decided to go up again with the 11:00 convoy. Conditions are very bad. A lot of wind and iced roads. We had to put on our snow chains to make it up the hills. But we made it again 😄.
I am telling a nice story in the movie, but all you hear is the wind 😄. I guess it was about wind force 10. Hardly possible to stay on your feet.

12/02/2020

Aerial pictures of our 2CV's in Jokkmokk 😄

12/02/2020

Tipi tents with our 2CV's in Jokkmokk.

12/02/2020

Yesterday’s trip to NORTH CAPE😄💪💪

https://opavontuurineen2cv.blogspot.com/2020/02/tuesday-11-feb-we-did-it-16-2cvs-on.html

Alta - Honningsvåg via the Northcape: 280 km Today we headed to Honningsvåg with the idea to go to the Northcape with tomorrow’s 11 o’ clock...

11/02/2020

16 2CV’s made it to North Cape 😄💪🥇💥

11/02/2020

It looks like the Classic Raid is lucky and will be able to go to North Cape:

https://www.vegvesen.no/trafikkbeta?lat=70.91542&long=25.57378&zoom=7&listView=false

Få oppdaterte veg- og trafikkmeldinger, vær- og føremeldinger og se trafikkflyt i sanntid. I kartet finnes også en ruteplanlegger.

11/02/2020

Oww I just realized I am missing a day. Read about it here: https://opavontuurineen2cv.blogspot.com/2020/02/sunday-9-february-nice-trip-and-great.html

Kurravaara - Enontekiö 290 km Today we started with breakfast in the restaurant followed by a little walk on the lake. They build a snow vil...

11/02/2020

Today we drove to Alta, the largest city in north Norway. It was snowing all day with temperatures around 0 degrees. Due to the temperature the snow is getting heavy. Before the Norwegian border the road was not prepared causing the heavy snow to make difficult driving conditions. An upcoming truck almost pushed Draakje off the road causing the engine compartment to catch a good load of snow resulting in a terrifying mechanical noise. We removed the right front wing to get all snow out. After that everything seemed fine.

Some teams stopped at the petrol station”pit stop” and were welcomed by a very enthousiastic VW Beatle driver: https://www.facebook.com/215683185153463/posts/2717806408274449/

The accommodation were different cabins. All participants prepared their own dinner before the driver’s meeting in a common tv-shed after which the night continued in the fire place which was packed 😄

09/02/2020

My co-pilote writes a blog which is way better than my updates here on facebook. Read it; it’s great 😄

https://opavontuurineen2cv.blogspot.com/2020/02/saturday-february-8-beautiful-trip.html

Jokkmokk - Kurravaara 262 lovely km This morning we said goodbye to the extreme teams and took of for the first classic trip of the raid. Be...

08/02/2020

Sorry, I’m a few days behind. So here is a short capture of Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

Wednesday, we tried to cross the border to Sweden via the E10 to go to our accommodation in Björkliden, but the E10 was closed due to excessive snowfall. So on Wednesday night we found ourselves alternative accommodation to wait for the E10 to open. But that night the forecasts were not positive and we decided leave very early (5am) in Thursday to take the ling northerly route via Skibotn and cross the Swedish border via the E8.

So Thursday we drove a long way (660km) to Jokkmokk. In Norway the weather conditions were very bad with lots of snowfall, but when we crossed the mountains at Skibotn into Sweden, a miraculous change in weather conditions took place. Within half an hour, we went from snow storm to blue skies and sunshine.

We drove in perfect conditions over hilly roads through a beautiful nature reserve. The road conditions were perfect and we made good progress Liane Cagé slept a good part of the trip.

In Jokkmokk 2 large tipi tents were ready for us including different heaters to get the frost out of the tents. Everybody found a spot in the tent on inflatable mattresses, insulated from the cold ground by reindeer skins.

Outside a fire was made and the Classic raid teams got to know the Extreme raid teams. Experiences and drinks were shared around the fire.

04/02/2020

Today was a special day full of excitement, a bit of disappointment and extreme thrill.

During breakfast we heard from the hotel management that the road to North Cape was closed with only a tiny chance it would be opened at 11am or at noon for the bus loads of tourists from the hütengrütten ferry. So we decided to take our chance and to drive to the gate where the convoy starts for the last 13km to North Cape.

It had snowed a lot over night, so the participants dug out their cars, started the engines and got ready. In groups of a few cars we departed to the gate. Unfortunately the first group to arrive found out from a snow-plough guy it was not going to happen. Even the guy could hardly see over the snow from his huge monster of a snow machine. So North Cape was cancelled and all groups made a U-turn to start their way to the hotel at Storslett.

This turned out to be quite an extreme journey as well. The weather was very unpredictable with even sunshine, but slowly evolving into a really terrible snow storm. There was so much snow falling that the only way to find the road and stag on it was by following the track in the snow from the car in front of you.

3 teams did not make it to the hotel, because the road was closed just in front of them due to the heavy snow fall. They found a farmer close by with a few cabins to spend the night.

We had a good toast to celebrate our safe arrivals.

Good night 😊

04/02/2020

All-Connects has supplied 2CV-Raid Lapland with a WiFiworld tracker. We are currently at Sørkjosen in Norway.

You can follow our real-time positions at:

https://mytrack.one/app/ #/import/5ebb09c1-4040-4f59-98b7-099028904efc

03/02/2020

All teams safe in Honningsvåg 😅

03/02/2020

Always time for fun 😄

03/02/2020

Really tough conditions towards North Cape

03/02/2020

Tough conditions

03/02/2020

Many reindeer were spotted today.

03/02/2020

Today was probably even more extreme than yesterday, but also as great. From beautiful clear sky weather with amazing views, reindeer on the road till extreme snow storms and extremely slippery roads.

This morning we had a simple breakfast in our accommodation. The teams were divided over different chalets and main building.

A number of teams decided to not take the main roads, but take a secondary road: Teams “Rust Never Sleeps, DacarDuck, Royal Blueness, PraaPraa, Sssuperfin and Draakje. At 9:30 we left in convoy to the secondary road of which we were not sure whether it would be open, due to the recent snow fall.

But it was; a perfectly prepared white road through forests up and down hill. The sun came up above the hills and lit the tree tops and colored them gold. Reindeer were ploughing through deep snow along the road and crossing the 2CV’s paths. We stopped at numerous locations to enjoy the view and drink coffee.

This beautiful part of this leg ended at Karasjok where we filled our petrol tanks. We drove up towards the north when the weather was rapidly changing. While it was getting dark, it started to snow heavily in a combination with increasingly strong winds.

The way up north to Honningsvåg along the Porangerfjord and through the exposed more inland areas became quite extreme. The cold wind was icing the road surfaces. It was blowing hard to the extend where it literally pushed the 2CV’s off the road over the extremely slippery surface. At some point we were driving with our steering wheels turned a quarter turn to try to go straight, just because of the wind. Accelerating even a littlebit caused the wheels to spin. All that in combination with hard snow fall and nearly zero vision because of the powder snow being blown accross the road. We were switching between all the head lights we had on our cars to try to find the road in front of us. It was scary and exciting at the same time.

All teams arrived without problems, but all were exhausted and excited and full of new stories. We had a double safe-arrival drink at the Vandrerhjem hotel in Honningsvåg.

We had a challenge to prepare some chicken wings using the heat of our car engines. We marinated the wings, packed them in aluminium foil and tied the packages to the hot parts of the engine. Team PraaPraa definitely unfolded the best wings in Honningsvåg after 200km of slow cooking. Draakje had some black cremated stuff.

It is a big question mark whether we will be able to go to North Cape tomorrow.

03/02/2020

All-Connects has supplied 2CV-Raid Lapland with a WiFiworld tracker. You can now follow our real-time positions at:

https://mytrack.one/app/ #/import/5ebb09c1-4040-4f59-98b7-099028904efc

02/02/2020

Today we drove further north from Naruska to The resort Jokitörmä in Kaamanen. A trip which can be done in 4 and a half hour when taking the direct route (380km), but teams PraaPraa, Sssuperfin and Draakje decided to take the 80 and 955, a 50km detour that would add an hour to the arrival time.

The first part of the route everybody was driving was very nice with lots of snow on the road. At least we thought it was a lot. That thought changed completely when the 3 teams diverted from the common route onto the 80; the route was cleaned several days before, but the heavy snow fall had turned the narrow route into an off piste which was hardly visible just by a vague track from 1 previous car in the very deep snow. The snow was deep to the extend where Draakje’s chassis was ironing a 2cv-wide slit in the virgin white carpet. All windows suddenly heavily condensed because snow was filling up the engine compartment. With the heating at full throttle, the fan on and windows open to cool down the (co)pilot, we managed to get some vision through the wind screen.

It was tough to plow through the snow for 36km. At maximum rev’s in 2nd gear we advanced at about 50km/h. Stopping would have meant getting stuck, so that was not an option. When I pushed the accelerator too much, the wheels were spinning due to the car being lifted by the snow underneath. Focussing constantly to find the vague tracks in the all white surrounding was very exhausting. Sssuperfin had an easy job; just stay in Draakjes freshly carved trench.

Finally, after 36km of battle, we finally turned onto the main road from Rovaniemi to Inari just to find that it had not been cleaned either. Only this time it was a 110km stretch! Draakje had been fighting the snow to the extend where its fuel consumption doubled and we were getting concerned that we would not make it to Inari; the first petrol station according to Google, Tomtom and a few others. When we asked a lady letting her dog out she said we just passed a tiny little petrol station in the middle of nowhere that seemed to have moved there from a sixties movie. We filled up our cars, had a coffee and drove on.

Luckily, during our coffee, the snow plow finished its job from Inari to the petrol station, so the remaining 100km to Inari was drivable (sort of).

At the resort Jokitörmä, everybody had great stories about their experiences in the snow today. After the safe-arrival-drink everybody fixed their meals and went their own ways in the different cabins.

What a great day.

02/02/2020

Yesterday we drove from Taivalkoski passed the Polar Circle to Naruska on the Russian border.

It was a short trip of only 222km, so we had a “late” breakfast at 9am. After packing the cars most if the participants visited the oldest shop in Finland which has been in the same family since 1883. Beautiful old building with traditional clothes and other stuff for sale. Nice admosphere.

On the way to Naruska we passed the Polar Circle where the 2CV-raiders had their traditional passing-the-polar-circle-baptize; Eating Sürströmming (fermented fish from a can). The smell was horrifying again and the taste the same. But all raiders stood tall and passed the test.

The accommodation in Naruska was an old school-building from the time when Naruska was still a border crossing to Russia. We were welcomed very friendly by Ukka and his wife. They basically gave us their house to make it our home. We had the safe arrival drink, driver’s meeting, the award ceremony (for crank-starting the 2CV) and self-made dinners in the school’s gym, followed by drinks and games of pool billiard. We had lots of fun.

31/01/2020

Today, Friday, we drove a really long distance of 547km. Quite a distance in winter-Finland, but after a full day of snowfall it is really long, but absolutely beautiful. The roads were covered with a fresh layer of 10cm snow. In some cases we were the first to leave our tire tracks in the virgin white carpet. Underneath the snow, most of the time, was a layer of ice, so driving was a challenge, but all teams got to the hostel safely.

First we drove to Kota Husky near Posio for a 10km dog sled trip. Lauri who runs the place is a great guy. He has 80 husky dogs and knows all of them by name. Not only that; all 80 dogs listen to their names. Lauri even recognizes his dogs by their barks; the dogs are lucky to have Lauri as their owner. It is also amazing how friendly and curious all of the digs are.

After Kota Husky, we drove another 70km to the Vaasa Sports Hostel. A simple but practical accommodation; it used to be a dormitory for nuns. The place does not have a restaurant, so most teams went out for dinner. I think the local pizzeria had a good night 😄

31/01/2020

Hello you can now follow our live location here: https://mytrack.one/app/ #/import/5ebb09c1-4040-4f59-98b7-099028904efc

30/01/2020

Great day today. We had an early start with breakfast at 7:30am. The final destination was the island of Aholansaari in the middle of a lake which can be reached via an ice road only. The ice road was opened 2 days ago for our raid 😄. Temperatures were dropping to -5 degrees during the day. Too hot for the season, but at least it is freezing 😄

First stop was the museum of mechanical music instruments in Varkaus. Boring as it may sound, it was actually amazingly funny and interesting. It showed all mechanical machines invented through history to play music. The owner gave us a very funny and interesting tour.

After the museum we drove to Suonenjoki where we were invited by 2 Finnish 2CV clubs for a traditional winter picknick; sausages on the grill above a fire in a covered fire place. Very nice of them. The time was also spent by 2 of the teams to change out an alternator and starting engine.

After the bellies were filled and cars fixed, the teams left to go to the island. Some made stops in Posio to change engine oil to the low-temperature grade or to do shopping for the do-it-yourself dinner.

Team Draakje an Ssssuperfin arrived first at the island, followed by all teams including the 2 new-arrival teams making the extreme raid teams complete.

We had the safe-arrival cheers, drivers meeting in a nice enclosed fire hut followed by the DIY grilled dinner. The admosphere was great!

Tomorrow is going to be a lóóóng day 😄

30/01/2020

Busy but great day yesterday. Here are the highlights:
We took the ferry early morning in Tallinn and docked in Helsinki at 09:30am. We did some shopping and drove up to the start of the raid at Rantapirtti.

That’s where the raid starts and all the teams arrived there one after the other. The owner of the place was an excellent guy and decided to prepare his race track for us so we could have some fun. And we had a lot if fun driving and helping eachother out if the snow 😄

At night we had our first driver’s meeting with all participants to explain what they could expect during the raid and the particulars of the next day.

We had our first daily ritual which is a shot of Jägermeister from our own shot glasses, personalized with the engraving tool we took with us. The owner decided to play a few tunes on his harmonica.

The home cooked dinner with lots of local delicacies was perfect.

What a day 😄