Saturday 18 June – Nordkapp

Cold wet and miserable, not a good portent for the highlight of our trip. An earlyish start and as we had full facilities took the chance to properly service the van, not really knowing what was coming during the next couple of days.

A shortish run up to Nordkapp, following the tourist coaches we'd spotted earlier, but the weather worsened until visibility was down to 50 yards and we were relying on the satnav. So the entrance barrier looming out of the fog nearly caught us out and the nice young man relieved us of NOK520 (£43) which covered all the attractions plus parking for up to 24 hours. The next task was to actually find the carpark and then the entrance – we were obviously in the clouds, it was cold wet and windy – but we could just about make out a large building.

Although Nordkapp isn't physically quite the northernmost point of Europe (you have to hike a further 2/3 hours to a headland about 1.4km further) it has been the accepted point for many years and there is now a large visitor centre. A panoramic cinema, various exhibitions, the northernmost Ecumenical Chapel, several coffee bars and restaurants and of course the obligatory souvenir shop were all inspected before we ventured out to the symbol of Nordkapp, the globe on the headland.

Norwegian Troll (on the left...)

On top of the world!

Which you can probably tell is as much as we saw of the place, to our great disappointment. Hot chocolate and a cake in the Arctic Bar revived us a little and the server did say that although this was the worst they had seen in a few days (yep, that's us!) quite often it changed in minutes. This was not echoed by the cashier in the souvenir shop and in fact the weather forecast showed no change for at least 3 days.

Cruise ships at Honningsvald

Having paid for 24hrs parking, we returned to the van and decided to give it a chance; there were quite a few vans obviously settling in hoping to see the Midnight Sun, but by late afternoon we were cold and miserable so sadly departed, if only to get out of the all-pervading cloud. About an hour and a half down the road we had left the island on which Nordkapp is located, via the 7km long undersea tunnel built, we learn, to make a non-ferry link right up to the northernmost point. There are quite a few campsites along the way, all offering full facilities but charging quite a lot for things we don't actually need. However Norway operates an “open-land” principal which means you are free to use any open space, with certain restrictions. There are small rest areas along the road, quite often with toilets, water etc. which come under this principle and so many motorhomes make use of them. We spotted just such a spot at Russenes, very picturesque in the loop of a bay and found a space to settle down in for the night.

Bay at Russenes - can just see vans parked

Although still dull and grey we are at least free of the cold wet fog so, despite them being soaking wet, deployed the insulating screens for extra warmth as well as to dry them out. Provided we're not moved on we'll take a late start tomorrow after trying to fix the rear number plate.