Heading to the goal of the journey

We have been driving north through Norway for quite some time by now – but today is the day we finally can get to the main destination of our journey. The legendary North Cape right at the northern most tip of the European continent.

We drive up there from Alta and enjoy the drive – through the weather is still a bit questionable. So the views along the road aren’t as good as we could have hoped for – but there are some views of the coastline along the way and we do see a bit of the shore now and again.

As we drive north we finally spot one of the famous animals of the north – the reindeer. The reindeers up here are actually domesticated animals a bit like the cows in the southern part of Europe. But unlike the cows the reindeers walk freely around large areas of the north of Norway with no fences around them. During the summer the Sami drives their herds towards the coast so when we drive around the coast of northern Norway we do spot reindeer from time to time.

It is fun to look at the reindeer – they might be partly domesticated but they are far from tame. The reindeer do come close but they won’t let us touch them and keep at least some distance to us. When we stop along the road they block the road. And it is pretty clear we are tourist who hasn’t been up here long since the locals only slow down a little bit and try to make the reindeer move away so they can pass the road.

After some fun with the reindeers it is time to head to the island where North Cape is located – North Cape isn’t actually the northern most point of the European mainland – this point is located a bit to the east of here along the north coast of Norway. No North Cape is a cape on an island north of the rest of Norway. To get here we have to drive through a tunnel.

The tunnel to North Cape is possible the strangest tunnel I have even driven through. The tunnel is under water so it goes down pretty steeply from the mainland so we can pass under the water to the island. When we get into the tunnel there are signs warning about fog. And yes there is fog inside the tunnel – I guess the ventilation of this tunnel isn’t sufficient to keep the moisture from outside the tunnel to enter the tunnel. It is pretty strange to drive through the tunnel with the fog but we make it through.

When we get outside on the other side of the tunnel it is pretty clear the weather is bad. There are low hanging clouds on the small mountains on the island. We get to our accommodation and they tell us there is no reason to drive to the cape today – it will be covered by the low hanging clouds. So we don’t make it to the final goal of the trip today.