Wednesday, August 9 - Honningsvag, Norway

The population of our last Norwegian destination, Honningsvag, is 2500, it's at 71 degrees Latitude, and there are 500 indigenous Sami's in the area.

We really enjoyed this stop. Since our shore excursion was later, we took a 1 hour walk around town.

There was another Viking ship at port with us!

The port area:

These are RIB boats loading up for an excursion.

The harbor was full of hearty fishing vessels. It wasn't fishing season.

We found a beach on the edge of town!

It seemed like everyone was living in modest houses, but we saw expensive cars and electric vehicles parked at many of them.

Our shore excursion, "Drive to North Cape", was from 11:15 - 2:15 p.m. North Cape is known as "Nordkapp" in Norwegian.

We enjoyed the 40 minute drive to North Cape.

This is a hotel which was built for athletes for the Lillihammer Olympics. It is now functioning as a hotel for tourists.

The landscape was very lunar; no trees at all. We passed many reindeer along the way, including some white ones, but I wasn't quick enough with my camera to catch them.

These teepees were erected by the Sami's.

This long road shows us approaching the North Cape.

This installation was at the top.

There was a very large viewing area along the cliff.

This large building had a very good film showing in the cinema, several cafes, and a huge gift shop where we bought some souvenirs.

Brock preferred to venture beyond the fence.

The cliffs were enormous!

He wasn't afraid of the cliff!

He likes this picture because he thinks it makes me look like a chicken.

I felt much safer behind the fence!

Inside the multi-level building was a museum.

This is the closest we would get to a Puffin.

I believe this is a display of Arctic Terns.

The parking lot was very busy, full of cars, buses, RV's, campers, motorcycles, bicycles, and even a helicopter! I have no idea where all these people came from!

These people were unloading bicycles from a bus and were going to ride away on the bicycles.

On the way back, we passed a swimming "beach" area. I half expected Brock to make the bus driver drop him off there.

Once back on the ship, we enjoyed having Pedicures (Brock too), and I also got a Manicure. It was relaxing, and they did a good job on us.

Our ship pulled out of Honningsvag at 6:00 p.m. We witnessed the Harbor Master jumping off our ship onto his own boat once he led us out of the harbor. Then began our open water sail in the Barents Sea toward Svalbard.

This is what Honningsvag looks like from the distance.

There are avalanche fences above town.

This is the very tip of town.

Time for drinks!

It's starting to look pretty lonely...

There were houses in places in the middle of nowhere. How do people get to these places? There doesn't appear to be anywhere to dock a boat. There must be tunnels all over the place!

Good bye, Norway!