IT'S REALLY COOL IN THE ARCTIC CIRCLE. ....

Saturday 11th June 2016

They said that Norway was different and they were right. As soon as we had crossed the border (customs officers having signally failed to search us let alone uncover the contraband alcohol being illegally imported, which means we should have brought more) the scenery changed dramatically  and suddenly  we were looking at mountains, snow, glaciers and clear blue skies. The drive from INARI to OLDER FJORD was absolutely stunning and made up for 2 weeks of Swedish trees. The weather couldn't have been better, following the snows of Thursday and we are camped on the waterline with views to die for.
We stopped on the way at a place near LAKSELV which had been the site of the largest German hospital in northern Europe during Ww2 servicing casualties on the Russian front. When they retreated in 1944 in response to the advancing Russian army they adpopted the same scorched earth policy as in Finland and destroyed the whole complex by firing and blowing it up. What remained has been left and never touched and remains as a testament . I only discovered it's existence through looking for caches along the road, and one had been placed here with a brief history of the site,so we stopped to have a look and find the cache. Whilst all the buildings were flattened, much of their contents still lie rusting and it is a very moving place to walk around.....
The campsite is overflowing, and has many chalets for the coach parties heading to NORDKAPP......the road doesn't go anywhere else and virtually every vehicle is a Motorhome or coach.
Climbed the hill behind the campsite after dinner to log another cache and the views were 360° stunning.
We shall be in the campsite at HONNINGSVAG early afternoon on Sunday  and the plan is to leave there at 18.00 to drive the 15km together to NORDKAPP.
Hopefully we will congregate around 19.00 for a group photo at the Globe so if you wish to see us, log into the Nordkapp webcam and you can rewind it back until you find us. We will have a 24 hr ticket so I do not intend returning to the campsite until we have to. If the sun isn't visible on Sunday night because of clouds we will stay through Monday night as well. Being there at midnight is the norm but the sunset/sunrise optimum timing is between 01.15 and 02.15 so I shall hope to get photos around then.  Greatly looking forward to this,  hope the weather stays like it is now.