Honningsvag - North Cape

Another interruption last night about 11pm, scramble to get all our cold weather gear on then up to the top deck to watch the lights.  Just a small display tonight but as any old Norwegian will tell you…size doesn’t matter!!

We all met at breakfast at 7am when the dining room opened because we get into Honningsvag at 10am and get on a bus to North Cape.  The sun is coming up at 8am and sunset is 2pm so we have a small window of daylight to get the job done and with the heavy cloud cover it’s a very gloomy day.  The winds have been so strong over the last 4 days there have been no North Cape tours due to the dangerous conditions on the road and at the cape.  The temperature is about 3 degrees and they have predicted 30 knot winds with occasional gusts and as the North Cape is on a 300 metres cliff overlooking the converging North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans we dressed to impress.  The secret is to put your shoes and socks on early because if you wait till you have all your layers on it is impossible to bend far enough to actually reach your feet.

All ready to go as the ship docked and on to a bus and a half hour drive to North Cape.  Very informative drive.  North Cape is the most northern paved road in Europe.  Honningsvag is also home to the most northern service station, café, school, church, pub, motel, harbour and visitor information centre in Europe…..you get the drift?

Quite bleak desolate landscape, no trees grow naturally on the island, the only few are a mangy group about 6 foot tall planted by an optimistic home owner and are the pride of Honningsvag. Lots of snow on the ground in gullies along the way, the temperatures have been a balmy 4 degrees for about a week so the first snow falls have now mostly melted.  We haven't seen much wildlife on the trip but are assured the place is teeming with a huge amount of animal and birdlife in summer.  One notable are the thousands of puffins which fly in every year on the 14th April between 5.00 and 5.30pm.  They come here to breed and in order to gain weight over the summer, they eat half their body weight in fish every single day.  I'm a bit of a puffin myself on this cruise?   

Drove through a fair bit of fog on the way to the cape but we got lucky once again and we got enough clear weather to have a wonderful look at North Cape and its precinct.   

Got back to the ship just on dark at 2pm got out of our 4 layers of clothing and went up to the lounge about 3 and because it feels like 8 o'clock, Maureen and I had a beer and Pam had a hot chocolate with a dash of brandy; Noelene and Denise had an exhausting time at the cape and may have had a little lie down to recuperate before tea. We all had venison pate for entree and baked raindeer for tea tonight so I imagine Santas Claus is going to get caught short with his sleigh this year?

I’ll no doubt bore you with too many photos but I know you are all resilient and will look through them diligently.

The best I could do last night

Approaching Havoysund

Havoysund

Sunrise 8am

Fjords on the way to Honningsvag

These photos are on the road from Honningsvag to North Cape

North Cape

Maureen and the masked singer

North Cape - 300 metres above sea level

On top of the world

Fog starting to roll in

This is the visitor centre at North Cape.  It's a four storey building - three of the storeys are under ground

Then the fog cleared again

"Children of the Earth" monument advocating world peace, each sculpture adapted from a childs drawing, when they stayed at North Cape for a week in 1988

Back to the ship at 2pm.