The globe at the North Cape/Nordkapp – 71 degrees, 10′ 21″ north

I didn’t have the best night’s sleep last night. The boat was rocking a bit as it headed further north, so it was hard to settle. I had remembered to set an alarm to make sure that we got up in time, as we had our one and only organised trip booked for today.

We’d looked into trips organised by Hurtigruten and decided that we could pretty much do most things under our own steam. However, we did really like the look of the visit to a king crab experience that took us on to the North Cape. Neither of the destinations were local to the ship which was docked in Honningsvåg, on the island of Magerøya , so we thought it would be easier with organised transport. The first part of the journey to the king crab experience started with us taking a trip on a coach at 10:30am. The coach was organised for both English and French passengers, but I think that we were the only two English people on board. Benjamin, our German guide, was able to speak both languages fluently so spoke about the itinerary for the trip and other things we might like to know by alternating between both.

It took approximately quarter of an hour to reach the small village of Sarnes, where the company, Destinasjon 71 Nord are based. When we arrived, there were actually two coaches of roughly 35 people on each. The other coach passengers went to see a presentation, whilst we went for brunch in a Sami style wooden structure with a wood fire in the middle. Here, one of the staff members talked to us a little bit about what we would be doing. She then said that we would be having brunch of fish soup, before tasting their famous king crab.

We were sitting at a table of six and our presenter called each table up individually to get a portion of fish soup. When we were called, I could see that it looked like chowder, something that I really like. It hadn’t been that long since we had had breakfast, so I had only a small portion of the soup. It was delicious, served with soft bread, butter and a drink of water.

Once the staff had cleared our bowls and cutlery away, they brought out a large bowl of king crab legs and claws. Each legs had already been cut in half, so that it was fairly easy to eat them. We had a chunk of lemon to go with the crab and a traditional mayonnaise. The crab meat was sweet and tender, it was beautiful.

Kongekrabbe express – Eventyrlige opplevelser (destinasjon71-nord.no)

Everyone had time to finish off their meal before we went to a small pier outside, which had a pool of king crabs on it. Our presenter then took one of them out of the pool and put it on a stainless steel topped table. Fishing for king crab is a recent activity that the indigenous Sami people have started. It is now part of their culture like the traditional drying of the cod to make stockfish.

We learned that the king crab is an invasive species that migrated south from the Bering Sea, which is between Japan and Alaska. It has no natural enemies so it makes fishing for it more important as they eat anything, including their own. The king crabs that we saw in the tank were small, but our presenter told us that one had been found that was 1.8 metres long. The crab meat is also better when they are young. Males can be identified by the fact that they have a triangular shaped area on the underside of the crab, whereas females is round. Females can carry 15000-17000 eggs in this pouch. If left in the pool, the king crabs would only survive for three days. The staff respect animal welfare and ensure that they are kept in as natural environment while they are there.

A male king crab

Once we had listened to the presenter, she then allowed photographs to be taken of the crab. Some people even had selfies with it. This was before the crab was humanely killed for human consumption. It bothered me a bit to watch it but I was also curious at the same time. It took only a few minutes from being alive to being chopped up ready to boil.

We then boarded the coach to head to our second destination, the North Cape, which translates to Nordkapp in Norwegian. This was the longer part of our journey, which took approximately 45 minutes from Sarnes. On our journey, we saw reindeer grazing with their young in the mountains of the Finnmark district of Northern Norway. Benjamin gave us lots of information about the North Cap. It was first recognised at the northermost point in mainland Europe in 1553. The English ship, Edward Bonaventure, was searching for the north east passage to China, when it sailed past this point. The captain and main navigator on board the ship, Richard Chancellor, worked out the position of the cliff, and named it North Cape. This was one of three ships that tried to find the sea route to China, and the expedition was unsuccessful. The crew of the other two ships died near Murmansk. Chancellor returned back to England when he had reached Moscow.

One hundred years’ later, famous people of the time began to visit the North Cape. Francesco Negri, an Italian priest and scientist, is known as the Cape’s first official tourist. King Chulalongkorn of Siam (now Thailand) also visited, as did Prince Louis Philippe of Orleans, who later became king of France. King Oscar II of the union of Norway and Sweden visited in 1873. He unveiled a monument which is still there today.

We arrived at the North Cape just after 2:30pm and were given free time until 4pm. At 71 degrees, 10 minutes and 21 seconds north, this is the furthest north we had come. We scanned our tickets and headed straight to the globe before everyone else got there. Installed in 1978, the globe is situated close to the edge of the 307 metre high cliff and is a well recognised symbol of the cape. Luckily, there were only two other couples there and we had our photos taken by someone else who was waiting. After that we went for a walk in the bright sunshine. We took some more pictures of the cape but it was very windy so we went inside.

There is a well-stocked souvenir shop there so we had a look around and bought a couple of things. We then went for a walk again, but this time to see a sculpture named “The Children of the World”. This collaboration of seven individual monuments began in 1988. An author, Simon Flem Devold, picked seven children from seven different countries to visit the North Cape. The intention was for the children, from USA, Japan, Tanzania, Italy, Brazil, Russia and Thailand, to create “Peace on Earth”. Together they created Children of the Earth sculptures which can be seen below:

Before we got back on the coach, we went back into the main building where we went to see the Cave of Lights. It is a six minute presentation but to us it didn’t look very interesting. We were more attracted to a sign that said “King’s View”. This took us out to a private balcony where there is an uninterrupted view of the Barents Sea, with only the North Pole beyond that.

Visit Nordkapp (www.nordkapp.no)

Our journey back took a little longer as we had a photo stop to see the cape from a nice viewpoint. There was also traffic management as the winding road is being upgraded. When we finally arrived back at the boat, there wasn’t time to go into Honningsvåg itself, but there was a small building that was selling traditional Sami hand-crafted items and reindeer furs. There were two aged ladies who were showing people what they had made.

Back on the boat, we expected it to be rocking a bit. The shipping forecast for the evening and tomorrow was looking ok, but the weather is unpredictable and can change fairly quickly.

We went for our evening meal and had the same exceptional service and courses as follows:

First course – brown crab with brown butter emulsion, pickled swede dusted with beetroot powder and topped with chicken tapioca;
Second course – Pan fried asparagus with caramelised cauliflower cream, asparagus crudité, cauliflower chips, pickled red onion with victory onion oil;
Third course – warm pickled mackerel, crispy kale, smoked cheese, pickled blackcurrant, Norwegian crisp bread;
Fourth course – fillet of reindeer, morel mushroom, Jerusalem artichoke variation (prepared four ways – pickled, crisp, puree, baked), chanterelle mushroom cream;
Fifth course – Norwegian version of tiramisu made from brown cheese cream, cookies soaked in coffee and aquavit, strawberry cream

It was dark by the time we had finished and we had already heard an announcement that there was an aurora outside. We went back to our suite and wrapped up well before heading out. The aurora was weaker than the green neons that we had seen the previous night. Tonight it was more purple and pink. Later on though, the aurora was stronger and we saw a really good mix of colours – blue, purple, green and red.