Detour #184: The Highway to Hell, Norway

Driving to Hell and back in a loathsome little car is just the sort of madcap road trip that only Ben Coombs would cook up.

The more you like an object in your possession, the more you’ll be inclined to use it. A bit of a generalisation perhaps, but one which certainly holds true for most car enthusiasts, for whom the road trip is the ultimate expression of this fact. I mean, which of us doesn’t jump at every opportunity to open the garage, and take our pride and joy out on an epic drive? It’s an integral part of being a petrolhead.

But how can you justify taking a road trip in a car you actively dislike? It can be done, with some sufficiently twisted thinking. Please allow me to explain, through the medium of the Fiat 126.

Now, the little Fiat which I’d found myself in ownership of was a replacement for a classic Mini. I’d recently driven that Mini 10,000 miles from the UK to Mongolia and left it there, donating it to charity before flying home. A drive of a lifetime for sure. That Mini meant everything to me, after all we’d been through, and so the Fiat was always going to have its work cut out in convincing me it was a worthy substitute. But despite knowing this, and despite doing my upmost to give it a chance, I found myself starting to dislike the little car as I drove it home. A hundred miles behind the wheel was all it took for the dislike to build into hatred.

But what do you do with a car you hate? This is a serious question, and one which can only be answered fully via a trip to the pub. And with closing time beckoning and the table full of empty pint glasses, the agreement was unanimous. Having decided that it was the car from Hell, we clearly needed to drive it to Hell.

Hell is a small village near Trondheim, in Norway.

And naturally, we decided we should do it in midwinter. Because then, Hell would be frozen over.

Our little Fiat hit the Highway to Hell on Boxing Day, with Chris Rea on the stereo, and it wasn’t long before it started protesting. Not at the choice of music, you understand, but at the weather. As we drove into the night with the temperature of the humid air hovering just above freezing, we discovered that conditions were simply ideal for carburettor icing. The Fiat responded by temporarily depositing itself, coughing and spluttering, on the hard shoulder half a dozen times before it even got so far as Dover. 

It always fired back up after we waited for the ice to melt, but even so, as omens for a drive to the Arctic winter go, this didn’t bode well.

Fortunately, our arrival on the continent brought higher temperatures and drier air, and we were able to make better progress across the flat snowscapes of northern Belgium and Germany. But that’s not to say the experience was comfortable. With three of us wedged into the Fiat’s tiny cabin, along with our luggage, it was a cold, cramped experience. Hellish, even. Especially for the person sitting in the back. An ill-fitting passenger door meant they were permanently in the firing line of a cold draft, and being buried under a pile of sleeping bags was the only way to avoid a bout of hypothermia.

Gradually, the cold days and nights merged into one another, country after country fell behind us, and we found ourselves 1,500 miles from home, rolling out of a misty Swedish night and into a crisp Norwegian morning. Now, the mountains of Norway are some of the most spectacular around, and if anything is certain to lift one’s spirits, i’ts them. And our spirits certainly needed lifting, as despite getting us to Scandinavia, the Fiat in which we were wedged hadn’t yet began to go up in our estimations.

We dropped into the city of Oslo, and then rolled on up to Lilehammer, before heading to Trondheim, from where we made the short, 30 minute detour to freezing-cold Hell, completing the journey we’d dreamed up months before, over a beer. And our arrival in Hell raised a question. Should we take a slow drive home, enjoying the beautiful scenery and boundless hospitality of Norway, or should we carry on North, seeking out the northern lights on a trip up the Arctic Highway? Given the somewhat irreverent vibe which had characterised our journey so far, there was only really one option – to continue north. It would mean driving day and night if we were to make it back to the UK on time, but still. When one has just driven an old Fiat to Hell on the most slender of justifications, rationality can seem somewhat overrated.

As we left Hell and headed towards the Arctic, the landscape became ever more spectacular, a winter wonderland of mountain and fjord, forest and icy river. But overhead, the sky hung heavy and close, a grey ceiling which smothered out our chances of seeing the famous aurora.

We reached the Arctic Circle on a windswept plateau late in the evening and, following a few photos, continued into the night. And as we drove, the smothering overcast began to thin, and before long it was behind us, replaced by a clear sky sprinkled with stars, the beauty of our surroundings finally reflected in the night sky above. And then, a green curtain of light draped itself across our path, and began to shimmer.

We pulled over and watched as the aurora built in intensity.  Sometimes it would hang, seemingly motionless, for minutes at a time, before suddenly darting off to another part of the sky, gaining intensity, pulsating, hypnotising. And all the while, its reflection danced upon the windscreen of the little Fiat, which only a few days earlier had seemed like it wouldn’t even make it out of the UK.

Eventually, the cold forced us back into our steed’s cramped cabin, and my friends slept as I drove on north, feeling on top of the world. The further we went, the more dramatic the mountains became, thrusting ever higher into that gorgeous, aurora-swept sky. And as I drove, I drifted towards a conclusion. The little Fiat wasn’t so bad after all. And with every mile north it took us, it grew on me further. It had provided our trip to the Arctic Winter with a unique vibe, and its character and flaws were now no longer negatives, but instead positively added to the experience. It may have been slow and cramped, but its rear-engined balance had proven great for traction on the snow, and its quirky style now seemed to suit our trip perfectly. And as for the discomfort; even the discomfort now began to feel like a plus, as in getting to the Arctic the hard way, we felt like we’d truly earned the right to see the aurora. For hour after hour I drove on through the spectacular night, feeling full of joy, stunning ice-peaks all around and the aurora above mirrored in the ice-coated tarmac below. And as I did so, everything felt so right, as if driving to the Arctic in a £200 Fiat was what I was made to do.

It was twilight when we reached the northernmost point of our trip, in the Lofoten Islands, 2,500 miles from home. Here, the sun wouldn’t rise again for another six weeks, and a few hours of milky half-light is all that passes for day. After driving through the night in challenging conditions, I was exhausted, but it didn’t seem to matter. Inside, I was beaming. Standing next to our steed as I gazed out across yet another mesmerising fjord, I realised just how much I’d warmed to the little Fiat, and it’s big heart.

Words & Photography Ben Coombs Twitter | Instagram

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ROADBOOK

CLASS: Arctic blast

NAME: highway to hell

ROUTE: plymouth to hell

COUNTRY: uk, france, belgium, germany, denmark, sweden, norway

DISTANCE: 1,700 miles

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