Ausflug 38

June 23rd: North Cape and Honningsvag

Our day started out by sailing around the north of the island and there we saw the large globe that indicated the North Cape and the dome of the museum that now is part of it. We had seen the globe when we were here with the children almost 30 years ago, but the museum had been erected since then.

Our day in Honningsvag was cool and cloudy, and for some reason we were both somewhat low on energy. Thus, we settled for walking around the town a bit and gave up the more ambitious, as well as more risky, plan to take the public bus North to the North Cape center and then back to town. The risk was that the one available public bus of 60 seats would be sold out for the return trip and that we would be stuck at the North Cape and miss our ship's departure. Given the cost of Norwegian taxicabs, getting back down to Tromso, our ship's next stop, could have been a remarkably expensive undertaking. There were picturesque little boats in the town harbor and a Hurtigruten ship at the other cruise ship dock. The Hurtigruten ships deliver mail up and down the Norwegian coast, but they also carry passengers. Some of our relatives had taken the Hurtigruten "cruises" along the coast and had enjoyed themselves, but we opted for a Princess Cruise as it was noticeably less expensive.

Once in town, we wandered back along the waterfront area a bit until we reached a small lighthouse perched on a rocky promontory, and then explored a nearby "beach". The beach was in fact all stones of various sized, all worn into smooth, rounded shapes whether large or small. The waves lapping at the shore rustled the smaller pebbles along the waterline with a curious crunching or scratching sound as the stones all rolled around each other. The smoothness of the pebbles also made walking remarkably difficult as the pebbles slid out from under our feet at each step--much worse than loose sand. As a result, we did not do our customary stint of beachcombing but curled back into town to walk back to the ship.

I noticed along our walk that all the houses had "meadow" yards, which consisted of large, healthy looking weeds growing waist-high in any bare patch of earth, not traditional but there were lots of flowers in amongst the weeds. The only two grass lawns I found were one house and the cemetery beside the church. The town church was a nice, plain white church, and we contributed to their "get a new organ" fund. The church was open since it was Sunday, but the downside of landing on a Sunday was that 90% of the town stores were closed.

Once back on board, we sat out on the balcony to rest and enjoy the barren but striking scenery of this Arctic outpost. Unfortunately, our otherwise peaceful afternoon in an idyllic setting was punctuated by the sound of drilling and scraping rock from the rock quarry across the fjord. There they were apparently busily scraping out the side of the hill. Gravel pit? I also noticed the diesel fumes from the ship hung in a low-lying blanket over the fjord by the late afternoon, and that pollution added another jarring note to an otherwise pristine scene.