Today we reach the highest latitude of the trip although this isn’t where we turn round. We are at 71 degrees north or the North Cape. Our trip today is over lunch so breakfast was turned into Brunch which meant that we could make a couple of sandwiches to take with us, then at 11:30 we docked in Honningsvag which is a town of about 2500 inhabitants and is the Northernmost town in Norway in the region of Finmark, the town is 1311 miles from the North Pole. We had booked on a trip to visit the North Cape and when we got on the bus we were welcomed by our guide who said we had picked a great time to come as it was a hot summers day – the temperature is 6 degrees but she said that two days ago it had been snowing. This is in the super Artic so the median variation in temperature is not that great, the summer median is 10 and the winter median is -4 so unlike other regions in the artic where the changes can be about 35 degrees. As we left the port we passed more fish drying racks, which are for something she called stock fish? Or dried Cod, apparently they catch the Cod between January and April and they dry them between May and June. This is a great source of proteins and eaten all across Norway, they were surprised to find out that the majority of tourists take home the dried fish and feed it to their cats! Like the Shetland Islands no trees grow on the island apart from a few that have been planted behind buildings in the town, as the wind is really strong, apparently it is about 30 metres per second in the winter which sounds really strong although I am not sure what that will actually feel like and she did say that it is dangerous to drive in! We finally arrived at the Northern Cape where there is a globe which is probably the most photographed thing I have seen this trip as people were queuing up to have their photo taken by it! Then we went for a walk around looking out over the Norwegian Sea to the west and Barrents sea to the north east before entering the museum where they have a timeline describing the key events in the area. This has only been called the North Cape since 1553 when 3 English ships set off looking for a trade route to China. Only one boat made it this far captained by Richard Chancellor who named the area the North Cape, he wasn’t successful in finding a passage through to China but at least he has been remembered here! We went and watched their film that apparently is about the North Cape through different seasons but I don’t think I am in tune with Norwegian films as I really don’t think this is what it showed. Before we knew it we had spent one and a half hours here and it was time to leave. There is only one road in and one road out of the Cape area so we got to look at the lakes again, the temperature of the water in the winter is about 3 degrees but by the end of the summer rises to 10 degrees. We also got to look at the Reindeer’s again on the way back, there are quite a few young wondering around, they are domesticated and looked after by the Sami people, they are taken to the mainland in the winter and brought back to the island in the summer to feed. Apparently they are brought over by ferry and they swim back at the end of the summer. We also passed the airport again which has a runway that is only 800m long and we saw the entrance to the tunnel that connects the island to the mainland. This was opened in 1999 to replace the ferry and runs 250m under the water, it is 7km long and helps to bring some of the 300,000 tourist that visit each year although most come by boat. We had a quick walk around town then got back on the boat, we only have short postal stops this afternoon so we went up to the lounge, got ourselves a seat and relaxed with a drink having enjoyed a much better trip today than yesterday.
