Thursday 11th December 2025

Ivalo to Honningsvag

Woke up to another coolish morning with the thermometer at -8. Enjoyed the view of the morning sky- pitch black- through the glass ceiling then packed up and headed for a walk around the compound through at least 6 inches of soft powdery snow in most places off the graded road.

Warmed up next to the log fire before enjoying breakfast and then heading to the bus for our 400km trip northward to the highest point in Continental Europe – a town called Homningsvag.

Its harbour to the local king crab fleet and we are hoping for a good catch as we are touring the fishing precinct on Friday and tasting the fare.

We won the barrel draw for front seat in the bus which provided a great view, but also scary moments when snow had visibility down to 30 metres on two lane roads where driving down the middle was order of the day.

Our guide has been outstanding with great commentary, a broad brush account of history/culture/politics and herding the cats beautifully to keep the show on timetable.

With Finland having a long border with Russia, they are vigilant in protecting their border. Little things like having the worlds highest percentage of its population war ready to building giant freeways wide enough to land military planes bears witness to their proactivity. 

Back on the road, often in convoy behind road snow ploughs or passing them on rolling  roads, flanked by kilometre after kilometre of frozen over rivers and lakes.

We crossed the border into Norway and the change in landscape was immediate with rolling hills turning into higher and craggier snow covered mountains.

Got some great historical background on the local indigenous people- the Sami – who are basically the Keepers of the Reindeer’. They have their own Government, but can only make recommendations to Parliament and not enact laws. 

There are 200,000 in Norway and they have a pretty impressivenew Parliament House  which we visited in -28 temperatures- it was a whistle stop visit  to jump out and take photographs in Karasjok.

Stopped for a lunch break at Lakselv under the glow of a hazy moon, with no sun rising today – starting to feel like we are morphing into owl or bats with the dark existence. 

A bit of sloshing through deep snow to visit the chemist to get some relief for the tour cough and $A48 lighter in the pocket we got 2 things that will hopefully help. You certainly pay a high price for overstaying your parking when it’s snowing if the cars in parking lot were any indicstion

It was back in the bus again for the last 2.5 hours   snaking along the Atlantic, then Norwegian Sea  which eventually joins up with North Sea. The next stop North is the North Pole. Fishing (crab and salmon farms) and oil production, along with a bit of tourism, are the prime industries.

Lots of small clumps of houses dot the roadside, most adorned in Xmas decorations. The number of snow ploughs and strengthening snow falls didnt augur well for seeing the Northern Lights.

Norway is big on tunnels with 2 on the trip covering about 23 kilometres, including the one just before the island of Honninsvag. It runs under water at a depth of 220 metres.

The long day came to an end in the dark when we drove into the mountain ringed town, which was ablaze with lights giving it a fairy tale  look.

Shivered our way across the car park into the hotel and up to our harbour view room with a unique feature for us – a 2 person sauna in the room. We were the only ones out of 14  to be that lucky.

A little sleep deprived we grabbed an hour’s kip before another tasty dinner which was interrupted by the bus driver announcing the lights were starting to appear.

It was a charge of the Light Brigade as people ran to rug up and take endless snaps of an array of ever increasing light shows. Was definitely a tick for another bucket list item.

With cameras and minds full of amazing pictures we headed off cold and damp to finish the day with a warm sauna.

What an end to our second full day of the tour.