The Arctic Circle

On the ship they held a cute ceremony to welcome us to the Arctic circle. I chose not to have ice poured down my back though.

The scenery has been much more populated and greener than I expected, especially from Trondheim to Tromso, which apparently has a micro climate affected by Gulf streams. There are some very picturesque towns and villages. 

Special fish soup and mulled plum wine on the deck at 10.30pm on the evening we crossed had crossed into the Arctic Circle.

Tromso's bridge with the mountain in the background reminded me of Hobart. 

The biggest yarn shop I've even be to, in Tromso but I only bought one skein of Norwegian wool.

Honningsvag was an unexpectedly delightful small town, that looked even more amazing when some must rolled in. 

On the left, in the middle you can just see the avalanche fences that protect the town. We've seen a lot of them and fences to redirect snow from the roads. It's hard to imagine in winter they can get 3m of snow a day and travelling between towns is often done in convoys behind the snow plough. Though the amazing tunnels, like in Iceland have made such a difference for people living in more remote  areas. 

One afternoon we had an interesting visit with a Sami couple, who are reindeer farmers. They're the indigenous people across the north of Norway, Finland, Sweden and a little bit of Russia. They're the only ones allowed to farm reindeer in Norway. They have summer homes in the north and travel about 250km south for the winter. The reindeer road quite freely, Hammerfest spent about A$1 million on a fence to keep them out of the town but it is a total failure.

Traditional turf houses on the right and tepee like tents. Turf houses were quite common until the 1960s..

Kirkenes was our turning point, only 15km from the Russian border and the last Norwegian town before it. They have a memorial to the Russians who liberated them from the Germans in 1944. Today Germans are the biggest group of tourists in Norway and many Norwegians speak German. 

Today we were up very early for breakfast at the North Cape, the northern most point of Continental Europe. We were extremely lucky to get one of only a few days a year with no fog and also to beat most of the tourists there.

Note the white reindeer, apparently all reindeer farmers like to have at least one as they're considered lucky.