It was 10pm, time many people are thinking about bed, and I was pulling on hiking boots. On the other side of the metal walls of my yellow van was the island of Magerøya.
I shouldered my backpack (peanuts, chocolate, flask of coffee), opened the door, and stepped into an impenetrable world. It had been light for 24 hours a day since I crossed into the Arctic Circle two weeks ago. The enveloping fog reminded me of the darkness I’d left behind.
Magerøya is 300 miles from Norway’s border with Russia, connected to the mainland by a tunnel. Norway is bisected by countless fjords that reach far inland and cause major headaches for civil engineers. I’d got used to waiting in line for old-fashioned car ferries, or crossing the fjords via tunnels and bridges, feats of engineering paid for with tolls and oil money. The Nordkapptunnelen (North Cape Tunnel) to Magerøya is one of the deepest in the country. It plunges more than 200 metres below sea level.
I made a detour to the small town of Honningsvåg for fuel and drinking water. There didn’t seem to be many shops or petrol stations on Magerøya. There didn’t seem to be much of anything, apart from bog cotton dancing on the endless scrubby wilderness and the occasional reindeer meandering across the single-track road. There were no cars or campervans, just two motorbikes with German plates, speeding towards Nordkapp.
It was Knut who told me that Nordkapp, in spite of being known as the most northerly point on mainland Europe, isn’t, in fact. The real most northerly point is the headland of Knivskjellodden, a couple of kilometres west. Only there’s no road to Knivskjellodden: getting there involves an 8km hike over tundra formed of lakes, marshes and willow scrub to the windswept, barren edge of the Arctic Ocean.
The trailhead car park was a small patch of gravel, and my van was the only thing parked in it. It was a 3.5 tonne Iveco Daily, with a twin axle, a three-litre engine, and 150,000 miles on the clock. I’d spotted it on the side of the road back home in Cornwall, with a For Sale notice taped on the windscreen. I paid £1,350, with cash I saved from picking daffodils. In spite of everyone’s clicking tongues, it had already carried me 3,000 miles.
I locked it, kissed the rusting paintwork, and looked around for the start of the trail. Knut had told me it was marked by piles of rocks with red arrows painted on them. He didn’t tell me I wouldn’t be able to see the arrows because of the fog.
I’d met Knut in Tromsø. He was one of a group of drunken men on a stag night who had paid me to play my cello in the Ølhallen pub. Tromso was supposed to be the Paris of the North, only instead of the glass towers of La Défense there were jagged mountains iced with snow. I remember the blinding white angles of the Arctic Cathedral, like a caterpillar made of white triangles. I remember Sydspissen, where a derelict building covered in graffiti looked out over a rocky fjordside beach. I sat on the rocks with a bottle of Arctic Beer, watched the mountains change colour, from pink to yellow to orange, and cried like my heart was going to fall out.
I’d been away nearly two months, sleeping in my van by the side of the empty road, chasing the midnight sun north, busking for food and diesel, washing myself and my clothes in freezing fjords. It was the year Myspace was invented – although I didn’t find out about that until after I got home. The world was about to change, but that year few had smartphones, and social media was in its infancy. I was far away, out of touch and utterly, alone.
I’d set off on this journey after two things in quick succession turned my world upside down. A man I loved with the raw passion of youth left me for someone else, and a different man I’d known since childhood died in a freak car accident.
I boarded the ferry in Newcastle (a route that no longer exists) with little money, a surfboard I barely knew how to use, zero knowledge of car maintenance and a cello. I’d learned the cello growing up, and I’d been good, but I’d hardly played since I left school. I gave up because I hated playing in front of people. My parents lived hand-to-mouth, with no savings or assets. They wouldn’t be able to bail me out if it all went wrong.
Looking back, I’m astounded at my courage, or foolhardiness. I wasn’t – am still not – a happy-go-lucky person who sails through life taking everything in her stride. I was anxious and messed up. The idea of driving an old van to Norway and back made my heart race and my stomach turn over. Then again, so did ringing around for car insurance. Perhaps when everything is terrifying, it gets to the point where nothing is. Or perhaps something shifted the night my friend was killed. I remember feeling liberated, as though death itself was now a friend. I remember feeling uncharacteristically, bizarrely, safe.
This feeling lasted right up until I met Stan in the bar on the ferry. I told him about my plan to busk to the midnight sun and back and he bellowed with laughter.
“Got plenty of dosh, have you?” he said. “Not cheap over there.”
I parked on what I thought was a quiet street in Bergen. All night people thronged, leaning on the van, rocking it from side to side. I woke up to find empty beer bottles on the back step, and broken glass by the front tyres.
I drove to Oslo, which was 300 miles in the wrong direction. I was putting off the dreaded moment when I’d have to take out my cello and busk. I remember empty roads, forests of Norway spruce, the road tunnelling under the mountains for 30km. I slept on the outskirts of the city, in what seemed to be an informal campsite for migrant workers.
I left my van in the camp and lugged my cello, in its heavy wooden case, towards the centre of the city. I set up on a boardwalk by the sparkling waters of the Oslofjord, which was dotted with yachts and cruise ships. It was hot. I longed to be one of the normal people sitting with their cold beers at one the cafes with the colourful umbrellas. It took me all day to make the equivalent of £20. I was packing up when a middle-aged man with a gold tooth and a beer belly leaned in close and invited me to spent the night with him on his yacht, in exchange for NOK10,000.
I gave up my dream of seeing the midnight sun. It was too far. I went to Kristiansand, a city on the south coast, intending to loop back to Bergen, and save up for a return ticket. That would be more than enough of an adventure. By the time the police moved me on I’d made about £40. Enough to get to Stavanger, I thought. I hadn’t bargained for the ferries, three of them, each costing between £5 and £10.
I find it hard to trust people, and my insecurity can make me seem standoffish. I struggle with asking for help. I’m scared of rejection. But this time I had no choice. I explained my predicament to the man next to me in the queue, whose name was Jan Erik. He didn’t just pay for my ferry ticket. He offered me a bed and a hot shower, took me sailing and kayaking, told me I was brave and free, persuaded me to keep going.
The trail turned into a scramble. I slid and fell, landing on boulders. The boulders were strewn with what looked like telegraph poles, giant matchsticks washed up in a storm. I found the path again and hauled myself up on to a small grassy headland. There was a flagpole stuck into a piece of wood. Knivskjellodden, it said. 71° north.
I climbed to the top of the headland. Reindeer loomed out of the fog, antlers first, like the branches of wandering trees. I wove my way through hundreds of cairns, carefully constructed towers of rocks, left by others to mark the end of their own long journeys. I climbed to the highest point and sat on the soft, cushiony grass. I checked my watch: 11.30pm. The fog was still so thick I couldn’t see the sea, although I could hear it and smell it.
I lay back, closed my eyes, let my thoughts unfurl backwards through the days and weeks and months. The rollercoaster of grief and fear, the moments of liberation, the moments of pure joy. Stopping by the side of the road to stand naked under a waterfall and wash my hair. Lying on my back in a shallow river, letting the sun-warmed water ease the tension out of my cells. I’d seen muskoxen, and walked to the edge of a glacier.
I thought of the countless people who’d dropped coins, and even notes, into my hat. The policeman who’d persuaded the security guard to let me play in the shopping centre in the appropriately named Hell. Jan Erik and his sailor friends. Henrik and Knut. Time and again, strangers had caught me before I fell. Shaken up by death, I’d taken the first step on an unfamiliar path, and the path had carried me forward. The impossible had become possible, dreams had become reality. It seemed truly magical.
The fog was lifting. I sat up and stared, mesmerised, at the horizon. The sea was flat calm, like the surface of a mirror, like the stillness at the end of the world. I could hear reindeer teeth tearing at the grass. The cairns were an army of soldiers, marching victorious over the cliff. I checked my watch. Midnight. The sun was a fiery disc on the horizon. In front of me a sunset sky streaked with red and gold. Behind me birds, singing up the dawn.
I felt buoyed with relief and a sense of achievement. I imagined returning south, returning home, telling my friends and family (and ex-boyfriend) how I’d tapped into a superpower I didn’t know I had, found a freedom I never knew existed. I had travelled 2,000 miles, just by playing my cello on the street. I thought my journey was over. I had no idea it had only just begun.
Catrina Davies is the author of Fearless (Summersdale, £9.99), which is available at the Guardian bookshop
• This article was amended on 14 July 2021. An earlier version said the North Cape Tunnel is 2km below sea level; its depth is 212 metres.
