Kirkenes; Sunday, 21 May, 2023

Our earliest start to the day so far on this trip as our 11:20 bus departure had to be caught, given the next service wouldn’t be until about 6am the following day.

We checked out of the hotel and headed over to the main bus stop in town, arriving with a good 15 minutes to spare only to find the whole area deserted. Thankfully a couple of minutes before the bus was due a small handful of other people turned up for the bus, which was a good sign as the bus itself was 10 minutes late arriving – quite the achievement as this was the first stop.

I didn’t help the time keeping of the service when it turned out that the card reader on the bus wasn’t working properly and so the driver had to drop me off outside a bank and wait whilst I took out some krone from the ATM to pay the fare through to Hammerfest.

After the initial bumpy start the journey continued without any further drama, other than the stunning scenery of fjords and mountains as we crossed the very top of mainland Norway.

Very few people were joining or alighting, and by the time we reached Tana Bru, at the 25% completed mark in the journey we were back on time, so had the full scheduled 30 minute wait to make use of the toilet and stretch our legs.

The journey continued on from Tana bru through some of the most dramatic mountain scenery of the trip before descending into the tiny settlement of Kunes on a high plateau in the mountains where we met the Kirkenes bound bus and the official mid-point of the journey, and our second change of driver – the first change taking place at Tana bru (though in this instance it was the Kirkenes and Hammerfest drivers swapping buses to head back to where they had come from)