2014 Day 43 (Hammerfest to Kjollefjord)

Just in case you're getting the impression that this cruising thing is all too easy, let me assure you there is a downside! Last night, for example,the ship's PA announced at about 11.00pm that the northern lights were visible in front of the ship.

While someone nameless slept on in bed, I had to put on the required layers - undies, thermal longs and thermal under-shirt, second shirt, jeans, woolly socks, shoes, jumper, coat, scarf, beanie, gloves, get camera and go up to the open deck to find that it really wasn't much and he clouds had come over anyway. So back to the cabin to remove.............

Anyhow, today more than compensated. Quiet morning's cuise to Honningsvag where we arrived at 11.15 (they are incredibly on-time with these ferries) and were then to board a coach for the trip to North Cape. Only difficulty was that we had to have lunch at about 10.45 after only finishing breakfast at 9.00. Again the full layering of all available clothing was required for this trip - the temperarure range today was -4 to -1.

It had fortunately snowed last night but the day was just beautiful. About a 40 min trip up to North cape and along the way stopped off to visit a Sami family, the indigenous tribes of these parts who fish and raise reindeer for their living. Lovely people who actually spoke some English quite well - saw a real reindeer which was eating lichen like it was going out of fashion. Looked very healthy on its diet though

Bit of a scary trip - the road was the same colour as everything else around us - white! The driver obviously knew what he was doing and no doubt it gets much worse than it was today. Lots of the smaller lakes were frozen and the landscape was simply stunning with snow and mountains as far as you could see.

North Cape has a beautiful visitors' centre where we were able to watch a surround film of the area through all the seasons. There was also a history display in 3-d, light show and display of birds. Elizabeth found her puffins! The bird life here is amazing - thousands upon thousands on the rocky cliffs and flying over the water. Can't get any photographs though.

There is a big globe on the point which is Europe's most northerly point - we've gone as far as we can go!!!! Just another 1500km to the North Pole!

Late this afternoon we passed an old Sami church constructed under a huge cliff face - for some reason they announced a special meal on the back deck to celebrate as we passed so on with the thermals.............  - the meal turned out to be a type of reindeer stew traditionally eaten by the sami people and it was delicious. Sorry reindeer. And beautiful beef again for dinner tonight. At sunset/dusk we berthed in Kjollerfjord as the lights were all coming on - a beautiful sight with the mountain of snow behind. When I went onto the back deck to photograph it, the deck was covered in ice. Don't want to know the temperature!!

Hard to believe this voyage (in fact the whole trip) is almost over. Only a day in Frankfurt preceded by a night in London tomorrow night to go. Can we recommend the Hurtigruten trip ?? - absolutely. It certainly lives up to its billing as "The world's most beautiful voyage" - and we have the pictures to prove it. It has been a wonderfully relaxing way to end this tour but at the same time serving up continuous doses of magnificent scenery.

Trivia: Norway's GST is 25%    (explains the crazy prices here - a self serve coffee from a machine costs about A$6)

Cap report: only a few more opportunities to lose at least one of them!