Tonight’s our last night on MS Trollfjord & we’re sitting watching the ever stunning scenery pass us by & sipping on a cocktail. It’s very pleasant & we’ve had a very relaxing day. The washing is done, we’re almost packed & we’re meeting up with our new Norwegian friends for dinner.

We slept in this morning & almost missed the morning visit to Trondheim. It was quite rough last night for the first time as we were out in open sea, most of the time we’ve been protected by islands.

This afternoon we stopped briefly in Kristiansund, a pretty place. It was wiped out by bombing in WWII so the houses all date from the 1950s on.

The crew are a mixture mainly of Norwegian & Swedish people. They work 2 cruises up & back (22 days) & then have 22 days off. The Swedes like to work in Norway as the pay is better & they like working on the ships because they don’t need to have a home in Norway – they go home to Sweden for their days off. One young fellow was from Tromsø. He’d done his 22 days when we got to Tromsø so he was off to London for a weeks holiday as soon as the boat docked. He had 30 minutes to get to the airport.

I still have to do my 10000 steps so I’ve been walking around the track on deck 6. Some days it’s been windy, freezing & most unpleasant but just an hour ago as I finished off today’s lot, it was beautiful – thought you might like to see it:

Today we passed the marker which shows we are no longer in the Arctic:

The Captain held a ceremony on deck – he was handing out glasses of cod liver oil for free & selling glasses of champagne for $13. Not even a glass of champers could entice me to drink cod liver oil. I remember it too well from my childhood. That and Clements Tonic. David gave it a miss too

This afternoon the Captain took us close to Torghatten Mountain so we could see the big hole in it. It is 160m long, 25m to 30m high & 12 to 15m wide.  The Norwegian fairy tale explains the hole says that Hestmannen’s arrow whisked through the Bronnoy king’s hat long ago when Lekamøya fled south. (If you want to know the whole story, I suggest you google it.)

In between times, we’ve been napping, reading, playing bridge on our iPads & chatting to a lovely Norwegian couple who live not far from where Kylie lived in Norway. She was an English teacher. He taught maths & physics but was also a glaceologist in Antartica representing Norway for some time. They’ve also lived in Tanzania. They are very interesting to talk to. He has walked through the hole in the mountain. It’s all been very relaxing but now it’s time for our pre-dinner drink.

Here’s a video of this amazing spot we were in today. ​

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The outstanding feature of today was our sail through the beautiful, narrow strait of Raftsundet which is the border between Vesterålen & Lofoten, 2 counties of Norway. It was a lovely sunny day, temp about 19° so the deck reminded us of Spanish beaches. Women lying around in bikinis, the men shirtless, me without a coat. Yes!

We sailed into the TrollFjord, for which our ship is named. It was certainly happy snap time. So amazing.  I took so many photos:

The captain takes the ship right into the fjord, then turns it around & takes it out again. ​This photo is taken on the way out:

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Earlier this afternoon we visited Stokmarknes which was a pretty little town. It was nestled within the mountains. I’m running out of superlatives to describe the beauty. Hurtigruten say this is “the most beautiful voyage in the world”. I think they are probably right.

It really is a weird feeling when the sun is shining brightly at midnight. We’ve just docked in Tromsø, still in the Arctic Circle. Here’s what it is like at midnight. 

This morning we docked in Hammerfest for a couple of hours where we visited the museum of reconstruction. In WWII, Germany occupied Norway & when the Russians were defeating Germany, Hitler ordered a scorched earth policy & they bnrnt all the towns from Kirkenes down. Many people hid in caves in the mountains until they were liberated by Russia. The museum showed the story of how the towns were all reconstructed. It was very interesting.

There are many reindeers in the area & they were becoming a menace coming right into town at night & messing up the town so they have built 20 km of fencing around the town.

We didn’t see any live polar bears unfortunately but we did see this stuffed one. I didn’t see any Bundy rum, though.

This afternoon the sun came out again & it is another fine sunny night. We are back in the snow capped mountains again now & it is so beautiful in every direction.

Three times so far the captain has come over the loud speaker saying there are whales beside the boat. Once we saw a few fins gently poking above the water but I’d really like to see more.

It is after 10pm. We’ve had dinner & are sitting up at the front of the boat in a closed-in area reading our books, drinking tea & watching the little farms at the base of the snow capped mountains slowly glide past. It could be 10 am at home. It’s so very bright & sunny. We’re so lucky to see this.

We’ve done it. It was very exciting. This is the special gear we dressed in, we felt like astronauts but it kept us warm.

The suit was really heavy & we had two thicknesses of warm gloves. 2 hats & my hood kept falling down over my goggles which I had on over my glasses so seeing anything was a bit tricky on the way out but I had it sorted by the time we were out at the Saltstraumen. It is the worlds most powerful tidal current.  Four times a day, 13 billion cubic feet of water are forced in & out through a passage 150 metres wide & 31metres deep. My photos don’t do it justice unfortunately.

We also saw parts of the Caledonian Fold Belt, a range of mountains dating back 250 million years.

A sea eagle or white tailed eagle flew over the boat. They are the largest eagle in the world with a wing span up to 2.6 metres. There was a nest with two babies on one of the cliff tops. I couldn’t get a photo of them as my camera was stowed in my pocket at that time.

We were away from MS Trollfjord for about 2.5 hrs so we were more than ready to stop bouncing up & down & to be able to stand up & stretch by the time we returned.

Here’s my best picture of the eddies where the tide is rushing by.

I’ll post further pictures in a separate blog as two seems to be the maximum in any one

Today we arrived in Kirkenes which is the point at which Hurtigruten turns back towards Oslo. Many people disembarked here and a new crowd joined us. Our new friends from Clarence Town near Newcastle (our dinner companions each night) disembarked but finished this part of their trip with a quad bike tour to the border. It was a cold bleak day so we didn’t envy them. In Kirkenes, many of the street signs are in Norwegian & Russian.

David had sat on his glasses & broken one arm off but a very helpful young lady in an optometrist here put in a new screw – no charge. We were wandering around trying to see if we could find an optometrist, peering at our map, as you do, when this elderly gentleman asked if we needed help. He then walked us to it. Very helpful. But the strange coincidence was that he was an electrical engineer worked all his life in iron mines!  His wife was an opera singer who had performed in our opera house. It was lovely to chat to him & we wanted to buy him a coffee so we could keep chatting but he had an appointment.

Talking to the locals wherever we are is my favourite part of travel. That’s how you learn about their lives & culture etc. That is why I’m finding this cruise disappointing in a way, as the other passengers don’t want to chat.  They stick in their little groups & getting a conversation going is like pulling teeth.
We wandered around the shops in Kirkenes but bought only coffee & cake. Kylie has always told us about the beautiful creamy Norwegian cakes, often coated in Marzipan. Well today we saw them in our coffee shop which doubled as a bakery.

Dinner last night was a highlight. A buffet with Alaskan King Crab – as much as you could eat!  And there were some leftovers put out for lunch today. It was very fresh, very sweet & we really enjoyed it. There was plenty of choice but how could you go past the crab? Tonight the main course is Spicy Roasted Reindeer. We had reindeer the other night too. Seems wrong to eat reindeer somehow but it is tasty & tender.

We are anxiously awaiting 8:30 so we can go to dinner & at the moment we are in Bâtsfjord which is the Norwegian port known for the largest fish catch.  Overall we call at 33 ports & a Hurtigruten ship leaves Bergen every day going north & one leaves Kirkenes every day going south so we have passed a lot of other ships going the opposite way to us. The ships run to a very tight timetable & seem to be on time or very close to it. Since they are picking up & dropping off people & freight all the way, that is important. By 10:45 tomorrow we will be in Hammerfest. We have been amazed to see how Norway is made up of so many islands. The charts must be excellent as there are thousands of small rocky outcrops.only a very small percentage of our travel is in the open sea which is great. It’s mostly very calm & flat.

It was a beautiful clear night, little wind, & not too cold out on deck. Just incredible to see. The sun sunk lower in the west as it came up on the east, so we had continuous sunshine. Wonderful!  We are above 70°.