Ships passing in the night

Whilst we have been enjoying our cruise south, a Norwegian television company had been filming and broadcasting live the voyage of another Hurtigruten ship, MS Nordnorge, north from Bergen to Kirkenes. This live broadcast had proven to be immensly popular with the Norwegian public. We were scheduled to pass the MS Nordnorge at around 21.00 and we were all encouraged to congregate on the sundeck to wave.

Breakfast at the North Cape

We had booked four off-ship excursions as part of our cruise; the first being breakfast at the North Cape (the most northly place in Europe), Unfortunately, this involved waking up at 5am which was a bit of a struggle!

MS Midnatsol

We strategically positioned ourselves for breakfast with a view overlooking the harbour so that we could watch the MS Midnatsol sail in...she was quite a sight

A bear with a sore head

After lunch, we decided to drive out to Pasvikdalen (the Pasvik valley) initially to find the viewpoint Høyde 96 from which the ugly Russian mining town of Nikel, some 40kms away, can be seen.

A whale of a time

We drove a slightly different route on the way back to Kirknes so that we could drive over the bridge which marked the spot at which Norway is at its narrowest (the distance between the sea and the border being only a couple of kilometres.

...With Love

We were just taking the scenary in, and building up the courage to dip our little fingers in the Barents Sea (it was freezing!)

when all of a sudden a platoon of Norwegian soldiers turned up out of the blue. Could Andy's stone throwing really have caused a diplomatic incident?

From Russia...

After leaving the harbour we headed 60 kms east of Kirkenes to the small village Grense Jakobselv. Here the border with Russia is marked by a small river with yellow Norwegian border posts on our bank and red/green Russian border posts on the other bank.