Hurtigruten; Saturday, 02 February, 2013

Despite standing out on deck for nearly an hour, we didn’t see any more of the Northern lights last night, so it was with a bit of dismay that we were woken up at 6:45 by the ship nosily departing Hammerfest.

First stop of the morning was the town of Havøysund where there was just time to take a few photos before we continued north to Honningsvåg and an important excursion north, very north.

Honningsvåg is located at the southern end of Magerøya Island. The road runs up from here along the edge of the island to the Nordkapp, the North Cape. This is supposedly the northern most point of Mainland Europe. Given that the neighbouring Knivskjellodden is more than a kilometre further north, and that as it’s all on Magerøya island it can’t really be called part of the European mainland, it’s a bit of a dubious claim, but nobody else is disputing (or possibly has the money to build the tourist infrastructure to match) so it is to the Nordkapp that people come to say they’ve made it to the top of Europe.

The coach ride from the port was very interesting in itself across this frozen island, with metres deep snow, small isolated fishing villages, and for the last 13Km of the journey a compulsory convoy behind a massive snow plough.

For all the claims against it, the Nordkapp is incredibly remote, and with the sea cliffs feels like it is the end of something. The visitors centre includes the usual selection of “most northerly” – Post box, coffee shop, toilets etc. It also has a cinema which regularly shows a film of the North Cape during the different seasons which gives an impression of how remote this place is, and, more importantly, how spectacularly lucky we had been with the weather – clear blue skies (when the sun finally made it into the sky) and no wind.

After just over an hour at the Nordkapp it was time to head back across Magerøya to the ship and continue our journey, no longer northwards, now to the east, turning across the top of Norway and starting our descent towards the Russian border.

However, the wonderful weather had another surprise left in store for us, as several times during the evening, including during the middle of dinner, which everyone hastily abandoned, we were treated to the stunning Northern lights dancing across the sky, wrapping the whole view in a green glow with ribbons almost billowing in the solar breeze.

With the awesome power of the universe clearly demonstrated I went to bed, ready for the voyages turning point.