Hammerfest to Alta

June 10

I found out late last night that the Alta Museum is open until 9 pm, rather than 6 pm as we’d thought. This changed our plans drastically – we can now take the 4 pm boat back to Alta! So, we slept in late, had a delicious breakfast at the hotel, and took our time packing up to leave Hammerfest. This was nice, as we both like Hammerfest quite a lot and weren’t that anxious to leave it.

We had several hours between check-out at the hotel and the boat departure, so we took a couple of hours to just walk around the town. We started at the graveyard, which had some beautiful stones in it. I particularly liked this one. There were also baby fieldfares.



From there we walked through downtown, picking up a couple of souvenirs along the way in the local shops. We walked farther East than we’d been before, then followed the jetty North to view the harbor from the other side. Along the way we spotted a young buck reindeer eating moss off the rocks along the shore. We also saw some mergansers and another Teist. On this north jetty Wayne found a hardware store that had the kind of hammer he was wanting – his ultimate souvenir from Norway was to buy a hammer, like Thor’s hammer. Getting to buy it in Hammerfest was a big plus! Now we just have to get it home – it’s quite heavy.



I stopped for a couple of postcard stamps at the post office and amused the clerk by ordering them in Norwegian. I think she was pleased I was learning the language, even if I’m terrible at it.

We checked in for our flight back to Oslo tomorrow with the last of our wireless connection at the hotel. It ended up we needn’t have worried, as there was wireless available on the boat! It’s a nice big boat with hardly any passengers. We were really happy to board, as the wind had gotten very cold outside and we had nowhere else to go. I am going ahead and posting this so far without photos since I have the access and don't know how long it will last.

The boat trip had an interesting start – no sooner had we taken off than the boat slowed and turned off course to check on a small boat that had no one in it. There didn’t appear to be anyone to rescue, so we moved on. The ride was beautiful, down a narrow passage of water surrounded by corrugated bits of land from various islands. There were cormorants, gulls, etc. flying about. The only bad thing was that the windows were dirty and so photos didn’t work at all. No one Is allowed on deck on these boats, although it was probably too cold to be out there today anyway at the speed we were going.


Wayne got out his concertina (the only instrument we have with us at the moment) and quietly played a few tunes as we rode on the boat. It was a pleasant a peaceful addition to the ride. Overall, I’m really glad we had to take the bus yesterday, as there were reindeer to be seen and more varied terrain, but I’m also really pleased this boat trip worked out. I love being on a boat, even if it’s inside a window-lined cabin, and the trip was a good big quicker this way than by bus. (The boat trip was only 1.5 hours, the bus trip was closer to 2 coming up and advertised as 2.5 going back.) It was also so nice to have the lazy morning rather than a hurried one.

Upon arrival in Alta we hopped into a taxi to our hotel, finding we were very glad we had as Alta is much more spread out than many of the towns we’ve been in so far. We immediately set off on foot for the museum, which was about 15 minutes from the hotel. The Alta petroglyphs are everything I could have imagined and more! I was so awed and impressed by these ancient carvings, dating from 4200 BC, that my imagination is still running wild with the images. If you ever have an opportunity to go here, don’t miss it! The setting itself is beautiful, with a dramatic and varied landscape, and you wind your way through pathways and boardwalks to view 14 different viewing sites of ancient civilization. Some of the images are simply evocative of a spirit of people that is hard to fathom could be so long in the past.




The guidebook we have says it takes an hour to see these carvings/paintings, but we arrived at about 6:15 and stayed until the museum was about to close, at 9 pm. I think we were the final folks to leave. We never got to the inside displays, we were so wrapped up in the petrogylphs. I am so thrilled to have finally seen these carvings whose discovery I remember from my childhood.












We found an open hamburger/pizza joint on the way home and wolfed down burgers before returning to retire for the night.

The Nordlys hotel is very nice, with a big room and comfortable chairs and a desk. No tub this time, but lots of space. The least pleasant thing about it so far has been the fire alarm that has gone off several times, only to be shut off before we get out of the room. I’m not sure what’s going on with that. It’s in an excellent location for visiting the museum, however – closer than any other hotel in town.

The sun is also peaking out from behind the clouds here at 11:30 pm, so we may actually see a bit of the true midnight sun. This is a less well-oriented place to see it, but I’ll be looking anyway.