Monday August 21
Today we will have a special outing off the ship. But it is also a bit complicated. We have time though in the morning and we watch the ship stop at Havøysund scheduled at 8:30 am for 15 minutes.
We have breakfast and since we are going to miss lunch we were encouraged to pack one. The nice servers even brought us brown sandwich bags and napkins to take. I made cheese sandwiches and a piece each of a baked thing and apples which I washed in the room.
The ship was scheduled to stop in Honningsvåg at 10:55 am but it was 11:10 before we were off. A bus was waiting for us.
The island is quite empty. No trees or bushes. Lots of small fjords and lakes, grass and stones. A very few houses. And reindeer here and there, always in small groups. More about reindeers in Finland but we learned that here they are brought over from the mainland on a "reindeer ferry" and roam freely during the summer. At fall they will swim back by themselves. Of course in its raggedness it was quite beautiful and interesting. The lonely road was very curvy and up and down.
I think this road is about 21 miles (33 km) long. It took probably 45 minutes to get to the top where there is a visitor center with gift shop of course but also with a type of museum and a video/movie for us to see.
We had to wait to go into that theater a little bit so we did some looking around first. I am keeping the photos to a minimum here.
There was a very modern small chapel.
There was a tunnel with dioramas of some historic events of this place. Well, cute.
The movie showed the North Cape in different seasons but mainly winter. I think I liked the weather today better.
And then we went outside to the monument. It is awesome to think to be so close to the North Pole. The North Cape is the point where the Norwegian Sea, part of the Atlantic Ocean meets the Barents Sea, part of the Arctic Ocean. It was breathtaking ... in more than one way. When a gust of wind came it would take your breath away for a moment.
Stephen called for a group photo for which everybody happily lined up. He e-mailed them to us later. Nice!
We had a little bit of free time to discover by ourselves.
The building from the monument side.
Of course I couldn't help admiring that there were wildflowers in this place, of course on the other side of the fence.
We walked to the other side where there was a good view and another monument. King Oscar II was here 1873. The diorama depicted that in that tunnel.
Back in the bus at 13:25 with sanitized hands to eat our sandwiches etc.
Btw this is Magerøya Island. Some people actually are living on it.
Back at the harbor. The ship was scheduled to sail at 14:30. And it doesn't wait.
The map of the (most of) the island, the harbor, the North Cape. The blue dot with white ring is our location/ship.
This is a different map. It shows that lonely road.
We have time to play a card game on deck 6 with the view. James won by 1 point. ONE Point!
We also had to think of our youngest grandsons today. Caleb started 4th grade today but Colin and Owen started First Grade. Well, I have already reported about the German tradition of the "Schultüte" so here they are still in there pijamas holding them. Sarah had e-mailed the photo.
We have to sail more in the open sea today and it is very pretty. Here we were supposed to see stone formations one called "the church" and one "the chapel" but we can't quite see it.
Another lecture from Stephen, this time before dinner. This one was about Finland since we are leaving the ship tomorrow and Finland will be our next adventure. Of course it was good and interesting as always.
Thank goodness dinner was ala cart which we enjoy so much more.
No kidding. The dessert was really worth sinning for.
The ship was supposed to stop in Berlevãg at 22:00 for 10 minutes and somebody from the crew had told Marc that the procedures were special. It was a comfortable evening and we watched with interest but it wasn't different than all the other times. We did see a car be driven off and another driven on though. And also a couple left with their bikes. The Hurtigruten ships are just a form of transportation in Norway.
Tomorrow we are arriving in Kirenes at 9:00 am, the very last stop before the ship returnes to Bergen, of course with lots of stops but different going south than going north.
Our suitcases are supposed to be out of our rooms before midnight at the nearest elevator.
Done! Check mark! Time to go to bed.
1 comment:
Being a child of the 1960s, I LOVE dioramas! I remember every museum I went to had them. I think they are seen as old fashioned nowadays, but I still love seeing them.
Loved the picture of the twins - those cones are AWESOME! I was reminded of them watching a Youtube channel I like. The host was taste testing some sweets and snacks someone had sent her from Germany and she had these cookies and nuts that had come in cones. She thought it was such a charming way to package things and I thought of you making them.
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