At Sea - Kirkenes and we turn South

Sunday 27^th May

Not a good night but we still missed three ports; the announcement about leaving port at 8:00 woke us.

Just on 10:00 we moored at Kirkenes the last port before Russia and the turning point of our trip.  Kirkenes, like many of the northern Norwegian towns was used as a base by the Wehrmacht for their offensive against the ice-free Russian port of Murmansk.  The result, 328 raids by Soviet planes and the total destruction by the retreating Germans and for two months in the autumn of 1944, 2500 residents sought shelter in a mining tunnel.  Many of the new houses in the town were paid for by Sweden after the war.

 

Kirkenes harbour is far up the fjord and the Gulf Stream doesn’t reach here, consequently the harbour freezes over in winter.  The harbour is also home to a Russian fishing fleet as there are tax advantages using Kirkenes at their base.

The main employer is the iron ore mine which had been closed down for several years but is now being operated by an Australian company.

Leaving the ship for a two hour tour of the town and surrounds we drove out to the Russian border before returning to the ship.

 

Our next stop was at Vadso, one of the ports we missed during the night which was home to the NATO early warning system during the Cold War.  We had less than an hour to walk to the Vardohus Fortress, built in 1737 with most of the buildings roofed with sod.  It was built to withstand raiders from the east and is the reason the region is still Norwegian territory.  It has never been touched by war, except for some anti-aircraft fire in 1940 and it only fires its guns when the whole sun appears above the horizon, usually January 21^st and the towns children are given a day off school.

The fortress has some interesting displays in its museum including a sled mounted cannon, the first we’ve seen.  The highlight of its display is the only complete Enigma machine in Norway but it is in a poorly lit glass case and not well displayed and there aren’t any signs or description.

After dinner we called at two ports for 15 minutes, not even worth putting on a coat to go out on deck, though I see through our window that the sun has broken through the cloud for the first time today at 11:00 pm, we may get to see the midnight sun tonight.

P.S Midnight I have just been on deck and there is cloud low down but sunlight is visible above it.

Monday 28^th May

A very rough night I was woken around 2:30 am by the corkscrew action of the ship but soon went back to sleep.  I hadn’t heard the ship dock at Mehamn earlier or the next two ports.  Some passengers left the ship at 6:00 to drive to the North Cape and I will be interested to hear, when they re-join the ship at Hammerfest, if they had any better weather than our visit.

Hammerfest has always been regarded as the world’s most northerly town and the weather forecast today predicted snow and as we were approaching the port we sailed through quite a heavy fall.

In 1891 Hammerfest was the first town in Norway to have electric street lighting and its own power generation and its strategic location made it the choice for the German fleet during the sea war in the North Atlantic between 1940 and 1944 and the battleships Scharnhorst and Tirpitz were based in the nearby Altafjord.  Like many other towns in the north Hammerfest was razed by General Rendulic during the German withdrawal.

It is a public holiday today and all the shops are closed so we walked up to the church to find a baptism ceremony for many children in progress, we sat for a while to admire the interior but not wishing to disturb the service left to walk down to the town square through several snow flurries.

Near where the ship is docked was the information centre with a display including many of the animals, seals, birds and a large polar bear together with information about the early days in Hammerfest.  As the weather wasn’t improving we returned to the ship to get out of the blustery conditions.

After lunch we entered open seas again for a repeat of the overnight weather, there were many empty seats at breakfast and it will be interesting to see how many turn up for dinner.

I sat in the stern lounge all afternoon reading, in fact I read a complete book and wasn’t worried by the weather but noticed from time to time quite heavy snow falls.  When I went to dinner I was advised we were sailing in a Force 9 gale, which explained why there were so many empty seats in the dining room.  Also during the afternoon a talk had been cancelled and we didn’t rendezvous with a prawn fisherman to take on prawns, so that will be an item missing from the menu.

During the gale the Captain slowed the boat so we were nearly an hour late into Tromso for the midnight concert at the Arctic Cathedral, not that we knew as we went to bed at 10:30 and slept through.

Tuesday 29^th May

We were up early as we were leaving on an early tour and we noticed, the same as yesterday, all the mountains have a fresh cover of snow and as we walked to the bus at Harstad it started snowing.  Harstad has a population of 27,000 having grown from 30 in the 1870s mainly due to the herring fishing and when the herring stocks were depleted the town developed shipbuilding and other industries.  Due to fishing controls the herrings are being caught again but the town doesn’t have any processing facilities.

 

Our first stop was at the medieval church on the Trondenes peninsula built in the 1200s, around 1450 the church purchased from Northern Germany several altar pieces, most of the money coming from the parishioner’s contributions in cod and other farm produce which was sold in Bergen.  We were welcomed to the church by the Pastor who conducted a short ecumenical service in Norwegian and English and distributed a sheet with the words of a hymn in seven languages and invited everyone to sing in their own language, a United Nations choir.

We walked a short distance from the church to a museum which provided information and displays from Viking times, including a lot of information about the church’s construction as well as displays featuring the life, activities and housing through the centuries.

Continuing around the island of Hinnoya we experienced many snow showers while driving past farmlands, there is more undulating country than we have seen for several days and although the climate doesn’t allow the growing of fruit or cereals it supports a dairy and sheep industry.  A viable dairy farm is 20 cows and a sheep farmer needs 200 sheep. 

Rather than driving around the sound we took a twenty minute short cut before driving slowly along the edge of the sound to meet up with the ship at Sortland.

Our next stop was Stokmarknes, which has been a prosperous trading post since 1776, this town is the home of the Museum of the Coastal Express and is the town where Richad With founded the forerunner of the current Hutigruten Line in 1881.  The museum contain many displays of cabins, radio rooms, dining rooms and many artefact from early days of the company together with models of the many ships and information about the nine ships that were sunk during WW2.

Sailing on southwards the new snow cladding the mountains is very noticeable compared to when we sailed north, we are still inside the Arctic Circle so I suppose heavy falls in spring are quite common and the last two days the temperature has ranged between 2 – 5 degrees, I don’t know what it was late in the evening or early morning.

  

On our way to Svolvaer we again sailed into Troll fjord and I thought we were going to have better weather than during our last visit but as we approached the entrance it began to snow but eased as we crept our way past the cliffs on either side.

Apart from being the home of trolls it is famous for the Battle of Troll Fjord which took place in 1880 between fishermen in steam boats and the sailing boats.  The steam boats were able to monopolise the fishing and the sailing boat fishermen attacked them in an attempt to share in the catch.

Arriving at Svolvaer on the Lofoten Island we left for a quick three hour coach trip around some of the islands in the group passing the 1200 seat Lofoten Cathedral built in the 1800s, the largest wooden church in the north.

Our first stop was as the village of Henningsvaer where we visited Karl Eric Harr’s art gallery and were treated to a 20 minutes presentation of photos taken around the islands before viewing the three floors of painting, mainly of island subjects, scenery, sea and the people, dating from around 1870 to modern times.

We continued our drive around the islands, one with a wide valley containing many farms, some small fishing villages and other areas of rugged inhospitable mountains.  The mountains on the island vary from rounded tops to pointed crags and the height determines the appearance.  During the ice age the mountains below the ice were worn down by the ice and rounded and those above the ice remained sharp and rugged.

On our travels were haven’t seen very much wild life but crossing a bridge we were treated to a view of about 100 Eider ducks floating on the fjord.

We reboarded the boat at Stamsund, not a very attractive village built in the first half of the 1900s and has one of the island largest fish products plants, a cod live oil factory and 7 trawlers.  We have noticed in many of the fjords and bays large floating nets about 25 m. in diameter and 10m. deep, these hold around 20,000 salmon and they are fed pellets which contain fish meal and vitamins, it take 4 kg of pellets to produce 1 kg of salmon.

We left Stamsund at 10:00 pm and our next stop is at Bodo at 2:00 am but I don’t think we will wait up to see it.

At Sea - North Cape

Saturday 26^th May

Another good night’s sleep and I didn’t hear our arrival and departure from two ports, though Ann was complaining that the ship rolled a lot in the night.

After breakfast a short stop at Havoysund extended to nearly an hour while they unloaded about 50 pallets of paper, so we were 45 minutes late into Honningsvag on the island of Mageroya.  The population of 2800 was swelled by another 4000 today as a P & O and an America Holland liner were in port. Towards the end of the war, this town along with many others in the north of Norway were totally destroyed on the orders of Hitler, so there aren’t any old buildings on the island. 

Around this time of year the Sami people use Norwegian Army landing craft to land around 3,800 reindeer on the island but after a summer of grazing the adults and their calves swim the 1.8 km wide strait back to the mainland.  Before 1999 access to the island was by ferry but the 6.8 km undersea tunnel has provided a more convenient way of reaching the island.

After an early lunch, more like morning tea, we boarded the coach for the 33 km drive to the North Cape, stopping briefly at a Sami (replica) summer camp and along the road where many reindeer were grazing.  The North Cape plateau is still almost completely covered with snow and many of the lakes are still frozen but in 3 – 4 weeks the snow will have melted and the plateau will be covered in green.

In 1553 Richard Chancellor, a British sailor, searching for a northern passage to India, named it North Cape and the first “tourist” an Italian arrived here on foot in 1664 and until the road was built well after the war, tourist still arrived by boat and climbed the 1008 steps to top.  The cape rises 307 m. from the sea and is at 71 degrees 10 minutes north of the Equator, the most northerly point of Europe and there is nothing between it and the North Pole, 2080 km away.

On arrival we viewed a 20 minute film of the island and the cape through the four seasons, this was in the North Cape Hall which has multi levels and is built into the rock.  After the film we looked at several dioramas of various events in the history of the cape, including visits by members of Royal families, including the King of Siam, who presented many items for the Thai museum which are displayed in the building.  There is also a small ecumenical chapel in a lower level with natural rock walls and candles burning on the rock ledges.

We had a “lovely” day to visit the North Cape, rain, mist and a howling gale which made it difficult to walk from the North Cape centre to the monument and several times we were almost blown over and had to hang on to the legs of the monument to have our picture taken.  We walked, (read projected by the wind) around outside to look at a statue and other carvings before boarding the coach to return to the ship, which left port 45 minutes late.

 

On the way to our next port Kjollefjord we passed Finnkjerka, said to be the most graceful sea cliffs in Norway, as we were sailing past a Zodiac came out from port to meet us and swinging around came up to our side and transferred two men with a package which turned out to be cod fishermen who came on board to provide a talk on cod fishing how the cod are processed for drying and the treatment for the heads.

Leaving the boat we travelled up into the plateau where a Sami tent was set up and we were all (around 30 people) invited inside where we sat around a fire while we were given a talk about Sami customs, clothes and footwear and how they made them and given a bowl of reindeer broth.  We were then taken outside aand shown some reindeer and given a lesson on how to throw a Sami lasso, I was the only one to throw it over the target antlers.

 We then drove across a snow covered plateau with several  cascading rivers from the melting snow to the village of Mehamn and had to wait for about 15 minutes for the ship to arrive from the last port docking at 8:30 which didn’t leave us much time for dinner, a seafood night.

As I write the MS Midnatsol just passed, one of the largest ships in the Hurtigruten fleet and we have rounded a breakwater and docked at Berlevag at 11:05, this is our last port of call today.  No chance of seeing the midnight sun as we have had low cloud and mist all day. 

Ann making friends with one of Father Christmas's reindeer to make sure he calls later in the year.

At Sea - Arctic Circle and Harstad to Tromso

Thursday 24^th May

We were having a sleep in this morning when an announcement wakened us, “We will cross the Arctic Circle in about 15 minutes”.  Dressing quickly we went up on deck to view the globe on a small island marking the Arctic Circle, just as I depressed the camera shutter, at 7:20 and 53 seconds, to photograph the globe the ship’s siren sounded, so I recorded our actual crossing att 66degrees, 33 minutes.  Overnight the snow-capped mountains have returned, they are much higher and more rugged than those we passed yesterday.

During breakfast the ship stopped briefly to transfer some passengers to a small boat to view a glacier, they will re-join the ship at lunchtime at Bodo.  Shortly after breakfast we stopped at Ornes for some rapid cargo transfer and were pulling away from the wharf while still closing the watertight doors.

During lunch the ship docked at Bodo and later we went ashore for a walk around what appears to be a modern town.  During the German invasion Bodo was heavily bombed and 2/3rds of the buildings were destroyed, including the Cathedral.  This was rebuilt in 1956 and from the outside it has a very austere appearance and inside it was very light and open but like most Lutheran Churches little decoration. 

Leaving Bodo we had three hours sailing through open sea but the weather was calm and it was quite pleasant sailing.

Our next stop was a brief one at Stamsund before sailing on to Svolvaer arriving two hours later.  Entering the harbour we were greeted by a strong smell of fish and lining the edge were dozens of racks with fish drying.  We had less than an hour for a quick walk around in light rain, the first since leaving Bergen, before the ship sailed at 10:00 pm with sun shining on the surrounding mountain tops.

Sailing slowly through a narrow waterway we entered the 3 km long Trollfjorden with waterfalls cascading down the mountain sides, in places the fjord is less than 60m. wide at high tide and around 3km long, at the end it widens just enough to allow the ship to spin 180 degrees to sail out.  Unfortunately just as we entered the fjord the heavens opened, making standing on deck to view the scenery a little uncomfortable.

After leaving the fjord we returned to our cabin and got into bed just on midnight and it was still light enough outside to take photos.

Friday 25^th May.

A good night’s sleep with the ship docking at three towns during the night and we didn’t hear a thing.  We were woken just after 8:00 with the announcement the ship was leaving the fourth port of call Harstad, we had intended to get up and walk around the town but obviously needed the sleep.

At 10:30 we were advised that King Neptune had boarded the ship and was on the top deck to “baptise” all those who crossed the Arctic Circle for the first time.  The ceremony consisted of reading a proclamation by King Neptune and then kneeling while a dipper of cold water and ice cubes was poured down our neck, wetting us through to our underpants.  After the “baptism” we were presented with a certificate detailing our crossing and given a small glass of Cloudberry wine to celebrate, then most people performed a “ritual dance” jumping up and down to shake out all the ice cubes lodged between our clothes and skin.  Shortly after the completion of the ceremony the ship docked at Finnsnes for a short stop but we were drying out and missed going ashore.

Nearly three hours later we docked at Tromso, the capital of arctic Norway and it was raining and blowing quite strongly.  Rugging up in polar fleece and gortex complete with gloves and beanie, the first time this trip, we set out to walk to the “Arctic Cathedral across the harbour, walking over the 1km + bridge.  The wind on the bridge was very strong nearly blowing us off our feet on several occasions and with the temperature around 6 degrees the wind chill factor probably brought the temperature down to around zero.

The Tromsdalen church, “Arctic Cathedral, was built in 1965 from concrete and with its stepped roof is reminiscent of Sydney Opera House, though its roof is triangular shaped rather than rounded.  While in the church, admiring the largest glass mosaic in Europe, we were treated to several items on the large pipe organ.

Walking back into town across the bridge but on the opposite side to the prevailing wind was much easier than the walk over; we wandered around looking at the old timber buildings which contrasted to the post war constructions.  Stopping briefly to view the timber Tromso Cathedral from the outside we returned to the ship to dry off.

At 6:30 we sailed, making a brief stop at Skjervoy at 10:30 before entering open sea for 2 ½ hours.

At Sea - Bergen to Rorvik

Monday 21^st May

A slow start this morning as we were checking out of the hotel and check in for our Hurtigruten Cruise wasn’t till 3:00 pm.  We left our luggage in the hotel store and walked a block to check the route to the ferry terminal as suggested by the hotel, a much better route than the one we had planned, the hills were nowhere as steep. 

We continued on to a park with a large lake and some of the biggest and best flowering cherries we have seen and a large display of tulips in the garden beds and around the perimeter of the lake.  Today was a perfect spring day, sunny and no wind with dozens of people sunbaking everywhere, in fact every park we walked through today was crowded with people enjoying the sun and in the little lanes people were sitting in front of their houses in the sun.

Some food observations, Europe still has lovely grainy bread with crusts that crunch, not like the plastic bread that is sold at home.  A Big Mac Quarter Pounder in Bergen costs $17 and speaking to an Australian who bought one and said “it was revolting!”

After collecting our luggage we walked to the ferry terminal and checked in but had to wait an hour and sit through a safety briefing before we could board at 4:00 and passengers weren’t allowed into their cabins until nearly 6:00.

Dinner tonight was a buffet with open seating but from tomorrow we have set seating and allocated time for dinner, though breakfast and lunch are open time and seating.  After dinner we had a briefing on shore excursions and given a booklet about all the ports we will visit; we have just been out on deck at 10:30 pm to watch the sun set, a huge red ball.  It’s now nearly 11:00 and still light so I think it’s time to draw the curtains to darken our cabin and go to bed.

Tuesday 22^nd May

I’m writing this, sitting in our cabin at 9:00 pm looking out the window at magnificent snow covered mountains bathed in sunshine.  Last night after leaving Bergen the ship called at two ports, at 2:00 am and 4:00, we didn’t bother to get up to watch and during breakfast it stopped briefly at Torvik before continuing on the Alesund.  After breakfast we had half an hour for a quick look around the harbour and the Art Nouveau buildings built after the big city fire in 1904.

 

We then left to sail for four hours up the Geirangerfjord surrounded by mountains with waterfalls cascading into the fjord, from time to time passing an open area with a small farm house clinging to the shore, many of them roofed with sod.  Arriving at the end of the fjord at Geiranger there were three passenger liners moored offshore, we were transferred ashore in a small ferry and boarded coaches for a tour back to Alesund, the ship returning there to meet us.

Geiranger, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is a town of 280 people but today our guide estimated that there were 6000 people in town.  Our first stop was at the museum where we watched a slide show of the town and surrounding area before driving up the Eagle’s Road, so named because it zig zags up the mountain and looks like the outstretched wings of an eagle, stopping at several spots to look out over the town and the fjord as we drove back to Alesund.  The road climbed to over 400 metres before descending but still travelling high above the fjord and passing through about six tunnels through the mountains, the longest being 4 km.

Arriving back at Alesund we drove up Mt. Aksla for a view over the town and fjord and while there we watched the ship arrive at the wharf, so after a drive around the town to view the architecture we arrived back at the ship in time for a 6:30 departure.

At 9:30 pm we arrived at the next port, Molde and on the wharf to greet us was the Molde Brass and Drum band.  All the drummers were girls and many of the members of the band also and we were treated to half an hour of drum and brass numbers, before they marched off to loud applause from all the passengers.

Wednesday 23^rd May

We were half an hour late sailing from Molde last night, the Tour Leader went ashore, apparently ill and we had to wait for his replacement to arrive before the ship could leave.

During the night the ship called at Kristansund for fifteen minutes but we weren’t aware of the visit.  Even though we were late leaving last night we arrived at Trondheim on time to find another Hurtigruten, south bound ferry docked.  The Captain swung the ship 180 degrees and backed past the moored ship to dock behind it, he handled the “reverse parking” better than most people can park their car.

The ship stayed four hours at Trondheim but we didn’t elect to go on any of the tours as we will be leaving the ship here on our return trip, staying for four days, instead we walked into town to check out our accommodation.  We will have a thirty minute walk on our return.

We sailed at noon and two hours later passed an old light house in the water, built in 1880, it must have been a lonely existence for the old lighthouse keepers and they didn’t even have a rock to walk on.  Later we entered a very narrow section of water and the Captain had to sound the ship’s siren to warn of our approach to any ships around the corner.

  

After dinner we docked at Rorvik for a short time and went ashore for half an hour, being a small town there was very little to see except the turbines and blades stacked on the wharf, for a series of wind generators being built across the harbour.

We cross the Arctic Circle around breakfast time tomorrow and maybe the snow will return as today the mountains have been much smaller and snow free.