On Top of the World

Today we’ve been to North Cape – the northernmost point of Europe. 71 deg 10′. Accessed via the port of Honningvåg (pop 2500, most of whom seem to be bus drivers, guides, or fisher people).

Lots of “most northern” or “second most northern”: Barrow in Alaska is 30km further north but ‘we’ have the most northern highway, and so on.

Only one catch – it’s actually on an island so not contiguous European mainland. Separated by a channel (2 something – miles or km- wide. Narrow enough to swim the reindeer herds off at the end of summer.) But in 1553, an Englishman searching for a route to China calculated the cliff’s position and named it North Cape. (Like Tasman, he didn’t check to see if it was an island!). So then a series of kings visited and put their imprimatur on it and so it’s officially the north point of Europe!

But we have left behind the other offshore islands, so here we are at the Top of the World. 2093 km to the North Pole; 2500 km to Oslo.

All that took a fair chunk out of the middle of the day, with a 45 minutes each way bus ride to get there: up onto the plateau and then across rolling treeless Arctic countryside. Lunch at the ship started at 10am to accommodate the excursioners. I made a sandwich to take with me. I couldn’t believe the. Number of people tucking into a full hot lunch at that time. Maybe they didn’t have any breakfast?

“Hurtigruten” means ‘fast way’. The company was founded in 1893 as a coastal mail and cargo and ‘bus’ service. Before that it could take a month for mail to reach Tromsø.So the Hurtigruten imperative is to deliver/pick up cargo from small and larger towns along the coast. Today we have stops at 2am, 5:15am, 8:45am, 11:25 ( today’s tourist stop – 3.5 hours), 5pm, 7:15pm, 10pm, and Midnight and a similar schedule each day.

On other days, some of the stops are up to an hour, so time to ,rave the ship. OST stops are 15-30 minutes. They seem to try to schedule one major ‘tourist’ stop per day. Is

It’s an 11 day round trip Bergen-Kirkenes-Bergen. I’ve just got 3 nights and 2 full days.

Yesterday afternoon we had 4 hours in Tromsø which was the capital of Norway for quite a while, and from where many of the Arctic explorations took off. It’s spread along the slope of a low ridge on the western side of its fjord, with newer development on the eastern shore with a new high bridge joining the two.

I hadn’t signed up for an official excursion and when I misunderstood the instructions on where to buy a local bus ticket, decided just to go for a walk. Aimed for an interesting-looking park that i thought would run along on top of the ridge. But when I got there, found it was actually down the other side. No, not climbing any more. So just headed back down into town. It’s a pleasant-looking city, unremarkable I thought. But I didn’t get any sensible photos. ( not even of the view towards the triple ski jump in the Nordic ski park at the northern end of town! they do like their law though!

Tomorrow morning, off the ship. Luggage at the lift lobby by midnight – better get back to the packing! Rain is forecast for Kirkenes. I’ve got the day there then fly back to Oslo on Thursday.