Today dawned bright and sunny as if to taunt us by reminding us how good life on the ship was. Somberly we headed up for our last breakfast, last time in our cabins, last relaxation in the panorama lounge, last approach to port....
On the way up to the panorama lounge after breakfast we met the restaurant manager in the lift. Seeing bags, he asked us if we were leaving. We told him we were but that we were very sad to go and would do anything to stay. He advised us that he was looking for some new restaurant staff. It's probably a good thing my Norwegian is not yet good enough, otherwise it may have been some time before you saw me again.
At dinner on the second night of the trip, we'd met a lovely elderly German lady called Barbel. She was a veteran of more than 60 trips over 30 years on the Hurtigruten and had many stories to tell us of her time on the ships. She has also travelled around Norway on land, and has learnt Norwegian (as well as speaking German and English) to communicate on her travels. She joined us for our last breakfast and we were joking with her about how sad she would be to leave us, with white handkerchiefs, a brass band and streamers on our departure.
As we got off the ship, we saw her and next thing we knew, she'd whipped out her tissues and started waving and pretending to cry. She was completing the voyage down the coast as well (which sails the same route, but the stops in the day on the way up become night time stops on the way down and vice versa) and was not going into Kirkenes or on any excursion, so she had gotten off the ship just to do that for us. Definitely an appropriate farewell!
We put our bag on the airport bus and went to get on, but it was quite full. All these people kept overtaking us to get on, yelling out in German that their bags were onboard and therefore they should get 1st priority on the bus. So we had to get on the second bus, but they wouldn't let us move our bags over. We didn't think this was a problem, until halfway to the airport we suddenly turned around. Watching out the back window as our bags sped away from us, we were totally confused until we realised the driver had forgotten to stop at all the hotels in town to pick up passengers for the airport. We were a bit tense as we did the cook's tour of the hotels in Kirkenes, wondering if we'd be traveling home a lot lighter than we should!
Luckily, we arrive at the airport just before the first bus left, and our unloaded bags were just two more bags in the chaos.
Kirkenes is a small town 10km from the Russian border, with lots of snow! All street signs are in both Russian and Norwegian. We wanted to visit the Russian border, but it was 10km in the wrong direction, and there was only 1 flight a day to Oslo! We did notice lots of army men around, which is never a bad thing...
We realised how far our journey had been when we saw a signpost on the way to the airport. It read: Roma 5102km, Bergen 2626km, Oslo 2502km. Oslo is halfway between Rome and Kirkenes!
Our flight home was over Northern Norway, Finland and Sweden and was so pretty from the air, frozen fjords, lakes and rivers. It was beautiful, but tampered a bit by our sadness that such an amazing trip had ended.
Arriving back in Oslo, which already felt a bit like coming back home, our mood improved a bit at the first signs of Spring. The snow had melted a lot (I actually saw some grass!), the air felt fresher and the sun was out.
Over our week away, we saw some wonderful sights and had unique and awesome experiences. The week long trip will definitely be a highlight of my time in Oslo. Beyond that, I also think that I have become very close to 2 of my travel companions and am already helping them to arrange trips to Australia. Sadness at the trip's conclusion mixed with joy at the fun we'd had as we said farewells to each other and went back to our rooms to unpack, sort photos (and sleep).
And we've decided to do it again, in 2019. You're welcome to join us!
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