Polar night hike to knivskjelodden.

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Tuesday

Another day on the road today. There are still sleet showers and the wind is still very cold. As we leave the fjords behind and climb up higher the mountains are looking splendid, what is it about snow topped mountains? We find them captivating. We pulled over a couple of times to take photos. At one wonderful view point we stopped where there was a British camper, the chap was taking photos whilst his passenger who looked rather glamorous sat in the warm cab. Les talked to him whilst I took photos, there were a couple of eagles flying in front of one of the mountains, unfortunately they had soared too high to get their photos. The British chap was on his way back from North Cape, having driven up through Sweden and Finland. It's always nice to chat to British folks, it's easy and there's no complications trying to understand or be understood. We arrived at Alta mid afternoon, found a supermarket, shopped, then we had to find a shop that sells silicone. The diesel hob has a fault , which means that it needs the ceramic plate removing, which will than require some silicone to seal it. We find a likely shop and buy the most suitable we can find. We have decided to book onto a campsite for the night, we desperately need to use a washing machine. There are 3 all next to each other on the riverside. We chose one and booked in, paid for the washing machine and drier. Once we had parked up I loaded the washing machine, although you have to pay for the drier there isn't any restriction on length of time it runs for, so I hand washed a couple if items that the colour runs from and dried them in the drier whilst the washing was going around. The maintenance and modifications department did a small repair on Dream Catcher.

Our neighbours, a German couple invited us to join them around a roaring fire, maybe later we're rather busy just now. After tea, washing dry and put away we watched a couple of episodes of M.A.S.H.



Wednesday

We're up early as maintenance has to repair the hob. I decided to be a bit cheeky and hand washed the bedding and dried it in the drier, talk about making the most of a campsite! WIFI's included and hot showers, yes you guessed, I took advantage of them too, blog posted and clean to go with clean everything else. Not sure I can say the same about maintenance though, it wasn't so much blood,sweat and tears, as soot silicon and scratches. It took all morning and into the afternoon to remove the hob, clean it lubricate the fan, build it back up. We should have left the campsite by midday, it was half past one when we filled with water and left, luckily there is a camper stop close by where we parked for the rest of the day. We enjoyed a lovely walk by the river before Les refitted the hob and yay! It seems to be working ok. In the evening I baked some cake. We now feel ready to get to North Cape.



Thursday.

Our camper stop, had filled up during the evening, we had watched with some interest, a mature Swiss couple in a converted camper. They had a slide at the back for storage and cooking, they cooked their evening meal and then presumably to save on washing up they both ate out of the pan with spoons.

Before we left Les had a look at the water heater again, but to no avail.

At Alta museum they have a Unesco world heritage site, a large collection of 6000 Stone Age rock carvings. We paid our entrance fee, and set off to walk the 4 km walkways, with our audio guides hung around our necks. The first paintings were discovered by a local chap and his son in the 1970's.

In the 1970's the carvings were painted with red-ochre, it was thought the best way to display them, however it's no longer done, later finds in the area have been left in their original state, it is much easier of course to see the painted ones as the others can be difficult to make out. The earliest ones dating from 6000 years ago, are higher up the rocks than the later ones from 2000 years ago, this was because as the ice age melted the rocks raised up out of the sea.

The carvings depicted local scenes, reindeer, elk and bear hunting, boats, fishing, birds and people, one large rock showed how the reindeer were corralled in a fenced compound before they were killed by bow and arrows. It was very impressive.

We had a quick lunch and left Alta to drive to the North Cape, around 3-4 hours. We climbed up on to the tundra which stretched for may be 100 miles, here the low growing twisted trees haven't even come into leaf yet. Wandering on the marshy, tundra are large herds of reindeer, occasionally they come on to the road and we have to wait for them to pass. Along the sides of the road there are small settlements, we think they must be summer residences as most don't have vehicles parked outside them. The whole area has a desolate feel. We eventually arrived at Skarsvag the most northerly fishing village in the world and last village before Nordcapp, however we aren't planning to visit Nordkapp itself, as its not the most northerly point of Europe, just the most northerly point accessible by vehicle. We're told it's a tourist rip off, about £30 each to enter. We're planning to walk the 18k round trip to Knivskjelodden 71,11'08"N. We check at the tourist centre that the path is ok, not too much snow, yes it's ok, the chap there suggested we walked tonight, it's going to be sunny. We had discussed walking there to see the midnight sun, but the weather today is pretty grim, however we keep checking the forecast and decide to go for it! We packed food and drink, changed into walking clothes, and drove the 10k to the start. It was 11 o'clock, blowing a gale with intermittent snow showers! But we're assured by several forecasts that it will be cloudy with sunny intervals. The walk follows rolling hills most of the way, but it's very rough and rocky underfoot with intermittent bogs, streams and snow to cross. We make good time. The reindeer were getting Logan very excited, he seemed to think they wound be great to chase, difficult when he's on the lead though!

The path eventually dropped down towards the sea, we could see Nordcapp high on the 300ft cliffs across the bay, we then had another half mile or so to go, it was a bit of a scramble in places across massive granite boulders. We met a Russian chap who was on his way back, he's as crazy as us, he said he had waited for the sun but it hadn't shone. We took his photo for him and we went our separate ways. At

Knivskjelodden which is marked by a large concrete pillar we quickly took some photos, after the first one the sun shone, just long enough to take a picture, we couldn't have asked for better timing, we signed the book to say we had been there, if you record the number you can buy a certificate from a local tourist office.

It was bitterly cold and a snow storm has blown in, we head for home, stopping in the sheltered bay to have some food and coffee, we'll never get used to these polar nights, it's 3.00am and we're watching the gulls flying around as the waves crash in. There were a few more light snow showers on the way across the hills, just as we reached the brow of a hill and could see Dream Catcher in the car park a blizzard arrived, a complete white out! Luckily we knew which direction to walk in, poor Logan wasn't too happy as his coat changed from black to white. It was good to be back inside, it was after 5.00 am we were dripping wet, cold and had little snow drifts on our rucksacks. We gave Logan a good rub to dry him off and we changed and had a hot drink before setting off to get away from this very bleak place.

That's one of the craziest things we've done for a while, but we can now say, "We've been there, done that, got the tee shirt." Mind you, we can't afford the tee shirts.



Friday.

After driving for around a hour we stopped for a rest. We went to bed and slept for around three and a half hours. We felt better, I showered, we had lunch and got back on the road. The journey was pretty uneventful, we returned to Alta, where it's more sheltered. We stopped briefly to visit a silver workshop, there were lots of nice pieces of jewellery but we weren't tempted. I can't help dozing as we cover the miles. We were held up at some traffic works for around 20 minutes, just time to have a drink.

At 5.00 pm we pulled into the same spot that we left yesterday. We make ourselves take Logan for his walk, why isn't he feeling tired? An hour later whilst I cook curry, Les showers and plots a route for tomorrow. There are lots of fishermen arriving for a bit of weekend fishing. The riverbank has some tents and shelters with fire pits close to them, that they must use each weekend. The river is a good place for salmon fishing, we didn't see that anyone had caught anything though.

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