As we crossed the border into Norway, we entered an inhospitable, cold bleak land with stunted trees and small homesteads with tractors on the lawn, quadbikes and snow-mobiles and tee-pee structures, piles of tyres and outdoor toilets. They looked like Sami settlements and that they had a tough life. We stopped for a toilet break and discovered a dead reindeer by a lake of black water, the first snowflakes fell and the temperature dropped to 3°C.
But then the landscape changed - rocky cliffs of black stone and fast running streams and pockets of snow up on the hilltops. It was beautiful and dramatic. We drove along the fjord at Alta when the German battleship that attacked the Murmansk convoy had been hidden in 1943.
We drove over snowy tundra with herds of reindeer roaming across it, and passed lakes with dark blue cabins and small boats and eventually we hit the dramatic coast road and saw tankers and fishing boats out in the sea, and crossed beneath the sea in rocky tunnels up to 7km long.
It grew colder and snow blew in as we climbed up the cliffs above the fjord on the narrow snaking road. Finally we reached the end of the world - Nordkapp, and we suddenly were in a crowded carpark full of coaches, cars and campervans and visitors from all over the world. It was midnight and as still light as day. It was 2°C.
We looked out from the clifftop towards the North Pole and looked at the sea and a trawler with the binoculars. The wind blew and it was bitterly cold. We learnt the name the North Cape had been given by British explorers looking for a northern route to China and that it had been visited by the then King of Siam at the beginning of the 20th century.
Then we took some pictures which I'll post later, and we drove down to a campsite and celebrated with some Russian vodka and dried cod.
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