Monday 2nd August mileage 3264 200Km south west of Alta

Weather absolutely awful all day.
Rained all night and as laying in my sleeping bag I am thinking I will have to get up and pack this tent away in the rain if I want to get to the garage.  So up I get and go through the process of removing my motorcycling clothes from the wet bag and packing up all the camping gear.  It seems much harder to compress it all down to fit into the bags when it is wet, but eventually I was clothed in motorcyle gear and the bike was packed with wet camping gear and off Im set to the Suzuki dealer.  I will be interested to see how much a simple service costs in Norway.  I would do it myself but to maintain the european warranty from Suzuki you have to have the bike serviced at 4000mile intervals by an approved dealer.
At garage by 8:00am and got directed to the person who services bikes (Tom).  When I asked if he could do it straight away as I want to get on with my journey, he just raised his eyes.  He said I should come back for 13:00hrs but he would call me if he got it done sooner.  Agreed I asked how much it would cost, again his eyes went up to his eye brows and he said labour is expensive in Norway, 900Kr/hr and the service would take 1.5 hrs and then there was the cost of the parts used etc.  All the service calls for is change of oil and then checking variuos items for tightness etc.  I put my arm around him and said I was glad he was getting paid 900kr/hr and again his eyes lifted but in mock disbelief. 
He asked me to put the bike in the workshop between a fork lift truck and a snowmobile.  As I positioed it a managed to bash the now infamous pannier on his forklift truck, no damage done this time, but I am pushing my luck with these panniers.  I cannot even lift the bike onto it's centre stand when it is loaded up so together we set the bike ready for him to work on it.
Went back to the guy at the reception and asked if there was an internet cafe in town.  He said there was access at the AMFI centre which was just 150 mtres away.  They had spare offices and what looked like active computers so I asked if I could just use one of these.  I didn't need to understand Norwegian to get the message !!
So off to the AMFI centre which was one of the new style shopping malls that are springing up in what you would describe as "out of context" because the infrastructure around is quite neglected, but then you get these glittering retail outlets.  Went to a cafe and asked the woman if there was any internet access in thew AMFI centre.  She said there used to be but they were taken out !! Great !!  Asked her where the library was and that was only  another 150 mtres so went there.  It only opens at 10:00 so back for another coffee and eventually get to the library at 10:00.  The people could not have been friendlier, Yes you can use internet and although you are only booked in for 30 mins if nobody else is waiting you can stay on.  So this is now what I do  and it works much better, even in Finland where I write at present.   Sop over the next 2 hours I alsomst updated my blog, and managed to download photos from my camera.

On way back to pick up bike I noticed there are loads of statues and monuments in Narvik centre commemorating the freedom from Nazi oppression.
Back at garage bike all done, Tom (my mate now!!) told me the back tyre pressure was too low at 1.8 Pa when it should have been 2.8Pa had I not noticed it felt spongy ??  Yeah I said !!  Took some photos of Tom and the garage which was servicing all sorts of vehicles, cars, trucks, lawn mowers, snow mobiles etc.

So service book all stamped and ready to go.  The bill came to 1663Kr  about £160 so with Tom's labour costing 1350Kr the parts were not much !!

AsI came out of the garage there were two bikers trying to get tyres.  One was on a BMW 800GS which is the bike I was considering and I told him the seat was too high for me. He agreed and indicated that he was getting sore thighs.  The other rider was on a KTM 900 Adventure and was trying to get 18" tyres.  These are difficult top get apparently but the 17" and 19" are readilly available.  My bike has 172 and 19" tryes so maybe by chance I got that decision right.

Sety tomtom for Alta some 220Km from Norkapp ( North Cape !!) but because starting late only got 300Km done today, but still @ 70km/hr thats still 4 hrs sold riding.

Stopped at a Polar Zoo thought I might get to see mouse etc. but entry fee was 215Kr for 1 adult so just had coffee and sandwich in shop and watched a video of the animals. Probably better than seeing them in the zoo !!

Weather was awful all day so only a few photo opportunities of mountains with layers of cloud etc.  But saw a glacier where the snow is white, but the ice is still blue, not got to the bottom of this connundrum yet !!

At about 19:00 hrs stopped at a sign for camping and cabins and decided to get a cabin when I thought about the state of the tent when I packed it away this morning.  Cabin cost 300Kr but had four bunk beds and a heater !!  Washed myself and clothes in the amenities area/room and then spread out all the wet clothes and tent across three of the bunk beds hoping all will be dry by the morning.  

No food tonight just cup of tea and it's off to slumberland.  Called savi on our anniversary, only spoke for about 3 mins and it cost me £3.  But I've always been one to lash out on the ones I love !!

Looked at map and it about 200Km to Alta and then another 200Km to Norkapp so should get there tomorrow.

TOR