The Battle to Leave #Nordkapp! – Part 1

Having battled to get to Nordkapp (see post The Battle for #Nordkapp), we now battle to leave!

The following is an email I have just sent to the Insurance company regarding the current situation:  

To whom it may concern at Carol Nash/AXA assistance,

As there have been many phone conversations, it seems prudent that I should in someway to clarify in writing what has been happening in the current situation regarding the recovery of my motorbike (LV03 BWJ).

On Sunday, my bike broke down on the E69 Nordkapp Road in Norway.   Some 4 hours later someone arrived to recover us, however, it was not a motorbike mechanic and he could only take the bike as far as his garage in Honningsvag as that was as far as the recovery had thus far been approved and advised that the bike should be recovered to the BMW dealer in Tromso to be fixed.

You then advised that you needed a quote from your agents in Norway, and in the conversation is was made clear that I had to choose between accommodation or a hired car.  As it is impossible to camp  with out a vehicle as we would have done and did not know if it was possible at NordKapp at this time, despite the offer of a taxi to take us there, so we booked into a local hostel (80Euros)

I believe the phone call was about 10am Monday my time when I fully understood the conditions regarding accommodation and hire car and said that I would take the hired car but please deliver as soon as possible as we had to check out of accommodation at 12pm.  When I called at approx. 5pm my time, you advised you still had not recieved a quote to approve from your agents in Norway for the hired car or for the transport of the bike.

After threatening to claim for expenses for the night, a car materialised an hour and a half later, 500m down the road from where I was located with the bike.  Effectively it took a whole day to organise a hired car that was located down the road.  Clearly someone had woken up as I was then advised that the cost of transport to Tromso had been quoted in the region of 3500Euros (I forget the specific figure)  and that the policy only covered a sum of 2000 Euros – I then stated that then a more local mechanic will need to be found because the priority was the fix the bike and continue our journey as we were on a sponsored ride.   I requested a solution by 9am the following morning or I would start taking the matter into my own hands regardless of the costs that might result for the insurance company.

That night we wild camped – as it was our expectation to do for this journey where ever possible.

I phoned approximately 10am my time on Tuesday morning to discover, once again that nothing had been done.  So I then spent the morning and at the expense of using my mobile phone to phone Norwegian phones, to locate a more local mechanic.  Once located, I relaid the information back to you, and you porceeded to find a new quote for transport.

The new quote to transport the bike a third of the distance than Tromso was 2053 Euros!

If the discrepancy is not immediately obvious to you, please advise and I will explain in much more detail to help you understand.  However, futher to this, the quote is 53Euros over the limit.  I am not prepared pay for a clearly fabricated quote, especially now that travel expenses are 300% up as a result of this situation.  I then offered to source a van myself and drive it and quote you for the job, and you advised that you would be happy to recieve the quote.

I sent you a quote for approval around 3pm (Tuesday) detailing the cost of the van hire for one day, the estimated cost of fuel, and the cost of my time – the quote totalled 600Euros.

I picked up a message from Matt, who was dealing with the case, around 5.30pm saying that the van and fuel had been approved, but the compensation for my time had not and it had be forwarded to other departments – ‘but at least I can now move the bike’

I phoned him back and explained, that I would not be moving the bike until compensation for me to do so was approved.    I am not fool to be used by the insurance company to do work for free that I pay them to pay for.

I recieved a call from you around 8pm asking if the motorbike had been delivered, and in response I made it abundantly clear that I would not do anything with out recieving compensation for it to which he explained that it was unlikely to happen.  I have already sourced a mechanic would will look at the bike immediately (or at least he would when I spoke to him yesterday morning) and researched and provided a quote to do the job of transporting it myself. This is all work that other people are paid to do and are clearly not doing.  I have now provided a quote that saves the insurance company 1400Euros and they now want me to rush the bike over to the mechanic so that they can then tell me they are not going to compensate me so they can reduced their costs further.  The poor chap got an earfull from me!  I was advised that the quote was with senior management.

We spent the night in the hostel (80 Euros) as the weather had turned bad and camping was no longer an option.

Approx 10am Wednesday morning, having still recieved no phone call, I call you to discover nothing had been done. I am called back some time later to be advised that the senior manager will not compensate me for my time, but I am welcome to transport the bike myself still.

I, understandably, am becoming very stressed and advise that you must now pay the 2053Euros as you have now refused a cheaper offer.  Further to that, I was now in a situation as the weather was till bad  and clearly nothing is being done for yet another day and I was forced to book yet another night (80Euros) at the hostel.

You are aware I am travelling with a child (11 yrs old) I have further made it clear in the last phone call that she is autistic that we are sponsored to do the journey to raise awareness for autism, that the costs are beyond us and that I will ensure that they all claimed back from the insurance company when we return because simply put – our plan was to come to Nordkapp, wild camp one night if it was possible, then leave and head south for a bike meet in Estonia.  That we are now still here is entirely as a result of the insurance company regardless of my efforts to help move the situation forward anyway I can, and in so doing saving the insurance company money – something that the company has now rejected.

So the current situation is that we are still in Honningsvag, I have booked another night at the hostel (80Euros)  the hired car will need to be returned in 12 days, the motorbike has not moved, and you the insurance company are not doing what you are contracted to do which is to provide recovery for the vehicle regardless of being given the options to do so.

My stress levels are high and increasing and I have not slept properly since this whole debacle has begun.  My daughter’s travelling preference is to keep moving towards the end goal, and she is now becoming stressed as she can’t understand why we have not moved from Norkapp in the last 3 days.  This is added stress for me as her carer for which there is no relief beyond being able to take out my increasing frustrations on the phone to your customer care agents that phone me intermitantly to tell me that nothing has been done or nothing will be done.

It is now 1.40pm Wednesday – almost exactly 3 days from my first call for recovery.

If I have miss-understood the events that have transpired these last 3 days please clarify, and like wise if you would like me to clarify further on any points I will be happy to do so.

Please note that this is an open email and is published on the internet as part of our (myself and my daughter’s) on going journey to travel from the UK to Nordkapp to Gibraltar and back to the UK with in 8 weeks.

Kind regards

Melanie Cowpland

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If you enjoy following our travels, please make a donation – We are travelling approximately 8,000 miles –  £5 will help us cover 50miles, £10 = 100miles  

We don’t know the costs for fixing the bike yet but any help towards that will be GREATLY appreciated!

Donate here:  http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/charity-web/charity/finalCharityHomepage.action?charityId=1005498

 

 

 

 

The Battle for #Nordkapp

When ever you watch a movie, there is always that point where the protagonists are in a house and common sense says that one would leave, but they never do, they stay and invariably the worst happens.

I wonder sometimes if Norway is our house, and we should have left at the first sign of trouble, but like those characters, we ignored all the warning signs and are now paying the price!

It started off so beautifully.  Wonderful weather, great roads, and awesome scenery.  It was on our third day, heading towards Bergen, that the first sign of trouble began.  Rain.

Not normal rain, short heavy showers, or light and long, but heavy and long, like monsoon in India.  At these degrees north it is only warm or hot when the sun is out, put some clouds in the equation, thick low, freezing clouds, and it is considerably cooler.

Day 3

So on that 3rd day, we rode the high mountain passes when the snow never fully melts at super cold temperatures and intermittent rain, and descended into monsoon lower altitudes that drove us to find proper shelter for the night.

Day 4

I checked the forecast for Bergen, which was only another 100miles down the road, and it was heavy rain for the next 3 days, so I made decision to head back to the main road to head north towards our goal of Nordkapp.  The weather agreed with us, and we had a lovely ride in the sunshine on our 4th day, stopping at a campsite for the night after having an altercation with a truck on a hair pin bend sending my nerves in hyper drive and draining all energy from my soul to cope with finding a wild camp for the night.

Day 5

we only covered about 150 miles in large part because of traffic. July is holiday month for Norway, where 80% of the working population are on holiday (for Sweden it is August) and entire factories will close down.   The vast majority of these holiday makers have camper vans or caravans, and have to where to go quickly as they have seen it all before, Norway being their place to holiday every year.  A camper will travel at about 40-50 mph, slowing down over time, and then speeding up if there is a straight section in the road.  They have no consideration that a line of about 100 vehicles including lorries has built up behind them, and that the road is the only main road north, or rather very few showed consideration and gave opportunities for people to pass.  Throw in some really bad weather, and average speed will drop dramatically!  The weather was cold and cloudy and rained 60% of the time and again we stayed in a campsite that night.

Day 6

The following day, the heavens opened so we packed up early and set off.   We must have been on the road for about 5 hours with the rain pouring down the whole time, but only travelled about 100miles that day.  In part the weather, but also the traffic was now particularly slow and we were taking a stop about every hour to warm up with some hot chocolate.

So drenched again, we pulled into a place and got a room to dry out including all our camping kit.  In the process my jacket got oil paint on it as they decided mid-season was the best time to paint with no signs up.  They refused any compensation, and whilst ‘you can hardly’ see the paint on the jacket after they scrubbed it, it is none the less damaged and I insisted that they must take some responsibility for it.  But we don’t have time to hang around and argue about it all day so eventually we hit the road and got soaked again!

We were lucky this time to find a really cheap cabin by the side of a river, however, again the distance travelled was only about 150miles.

Day 7

Today I had to make a decision – do we cross into Sweden or battle on with Norway.  I had been scanning wind, satellite and rain maps for the last 3 days to determine the direction of the weather systems, as I didn’t want to have the weather follow us and it was clear that the forecasters had been caught off guard as well, as the forecasts were rarely correct!

It was clear the weather would move west so we made the run for Sweden through cold wet mountain passes and once again we were utterly drenched!  However, this day was better than the rest because for the first time I had some conversations with people!   Norwegians are very closed and not prone to being interested in strangers, no matter how exotic they may be (a GB number plate is pretty exotic in these parts!), and even the foreigners vacationing are so wrapped up in their own world they are not interested in others either.  For me this was a strange as travelling people, in my experience, tend to be more open and enjoy the experience of meeting others on the road – yet even my attempts at engaging conversation seemed to fall flat on its face.

All this changed when we entered Sweden.  The Swedish loved talking to travellers!  and even the travellers seemed more open.   So after over a week of what felt like total isolation in our own experience, the world started to open up.  That night, soaked again, we stayed in a cabin.   Our costs of this trip had now officially spiralled out of control!

Day 8

The weather was splendid!  Sunny day, beautiful roads, and hardly a camper van in sight!  We covered about 450 miles and could have kept going, only I found a beautiful camping spot by a river at about 7pm despite its swarm of mosquitos and some sort of fly.  Luckily some finnish fishermen were camping near by and lent us some coils which had a magical effect!  None the less, I did not sleep well as the ‘brightness’ of the light at night started to bother me.

We passed the line for the Arctic Circle this day, and a big tick in the box of goals as Sofia wanted to go to the Arctic Circle.

Day 9

Our final push to Nordkapp!  the weather was great, even at Nordkapp where the winds promised to be light, which was a relief after one altitude pass on the way had such a howling cross wind it was a battle to keep hold of the bike!

Turning on to the E69, the Nordkapp road, we were filled with excitement, we were finally there, and only a couple of hundred kilometers to go – the sun was shining and the winds were light!

And then disaster struck, the bike broke down!

Rescue finally arrived 4 hours later, and when I went to show the mechanic the problem (the engine cutting when there was no throttle applied) and the engine idled no problem at all.   So I drove to the garage with the truck following, thankfully in the direction of Nordkapp rather than away from it – but still, all hopes of making it to the furthest point North on the European continent were by now dashed.

The bike made it to the garage, however the vibration was really bad and the power was weak, this was not a simple fix and the mechanic advised that BMW were the best placed to deal with it – BMW whose closest dealership was in Tromso, some 600km.  So the discussions began with the insurance company, that have become more ludicrous as time has gone on which is for another post, however, just in this evening alone – they seemed more determined to pay for a Taxi to Nordkapp 35km away and bring us back the next day, than pay for our accommodation where we were even though is would be cheaper – thankfully the battery went flat on my phone before we came to any conclusion!

Once the phone had some charge, we waited for them to call – they didn’t – I called them – there was no answer.  Finally we gave up and by this time had booked into the local hostel (a shocking 80 Euros for one night is the cheapest accommodation in the area!)  only to have the garage owner offer us a car until things got sorted with the Insurance company!  What a star! So we dumped our stuff, got something to eat (we hadn’t eaten since 10am that morning) and with 30mins to spare, made it up to Nordkapp so see the midnight sun!

After such battles, our elation was palpable – and Sofia did something she has never done before, grabbed me round the shoulders for the selfie photo with a big grin on her face!  It is the first time she has ever done that, normally she hates to be hugged and it is extremely rare that she may hug, and even then she hates being hugged in return.   So the picture of us grinning a is a particularly special one at is denotes not only a shared experience and achievement, but that she felt that experience as a shared one and expressed in an appropriate way 🙂

If you enjoy following our travels, please make a donation – We are travelling approximately 8,000 miles –  £5 will help us cover 50miles, £10 = 100miles  

We don’t know the costs for fixing the bike yet but any help towards that will be GREATLY appreciated!

Donate here:  http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/charity-web/charity/finalCharityHomepage.action?charityId=1005498

 

A huge ‘Thank You!’ to Rev’it who sponsored our riding gear!  It has done a tremedous job in the weather we have had to deal with!

Our Jackets and Jeans were the Horizon range

Our boots – Outdry Discovery