Tuesday 30th May 2017

It was very cold and extremely windy in the night. In the morning we serviced the van before leaving Oksfjordhamn and headed out again onto the E6. Before too long we encountered drifting snow on a not very high pass.

A little further on several vehicles were stuck trying to climb up a hill towards us. We waited behind this lorry until the road was vaguely clear and then were able to move on down the hill past the stuck vehicles - very scary stuff.

We moved on - now in a generally easterly direction - we saw plenty of reindeer along the way.

We stopped at Alta to visit the museum and prehistoric rock carvings.

These carvings were made between 7000 and 2000 years ago on the glacially eroded slabs on the fjord side. As the land rose up recovering from having been pushed down by the ice age ice cap the prehistoric people carved on the slabs which had most recently risen from the sea. Hence it has been possible to date the carvings.

The "tourist" part of the site has red pigment applied to the carvings to make them more easily visible. However if you go down to the far end of the site you can find carvings which are not adulterated by modern red pigment. Here we see two people brandishing huge moose headed clubs with another person between them carrying a long spear. There are representations of deer below the human figures and to the right of them.

After visiting the museum and rock carvings we stopped in Alta to buy groceries and take on LPG. This is likely to be the last LPG we can get for a very long way so we need to try to make it last somehow. We stopped for the day in a rest area on the E6 just beyond Alta. There is a really nice fjord view just up from our parking place.


To day we traveled 99 miles (159 kilometres). We are at N69.98916 E23.48614