Team Basil went to bed last night with a lovely view over the beach at Selvika and awoke to find the bay and the beach had disappeared. The mountain behind us had vanished too. In fact our world had been reduced to a circle of about 50 metres around Basil.

Generally we have been very lucky with the weather, especially our first few days in Norway, with temperatures in the low 20’s celsius. However during the night the weather had moved in and the cloud ceiling had come down to sea level. All our beautiful views had been swallowed by fog.

Luckily the first part of our journey today was back along the Tourist Route we had travelled on yesterday, so nothing missed there. Then we were back onto the E6, the Arctic Highway, as we travelled south. The road turned inland, away from the coast. We climbed up onto a an undulating plateau, with patches of last year’s snow still marking the moors. On this bare upland, we saw our first really large herds of reindeer, several hundred strong, and often, of course, wandering across the roads.

The weather remained dull throughout our drive and we commented that at midday today it was considerably darker than midnight has been for the last few nights!

Our target today was the town of Alta, the first settlement of any size since we arrived in Norway. The first stop was to fill Basil with LPG. Finland has no LPG so we have survived on gas bought in Poland. We can last weeks if we are only using gas for the fridge and cooking, but as soon as Basil’s heating is on the gas can deplete fairly rapidly. I suspect that if we had heating on every night we would probably need to refill every week or so. There were a couple of very cold nights in Finland where we succumbed to the temptation of switching on the heater, but there have been other times where we have been tempted and resisted for fear of running out of gas. Now we can be as warm as we like, because Norway, although not flush with LPG filling points, has sufficient.

We then parked in Alta’s centre. Alta is a community which spreads several kilometres along the side of a fjord, but we stopped in the official centre. The charge for parking next to the new cathedral was supposed to be 60 NOK (€7), but we noticed a number of people going to the machine, reading the charge, and then ignoring it. We joined them.

After a quick lunch I went to seek out Tourist Information. On the way I admired the brand new Cathedral of the Northern Lights. A very minimalistic, stylish modern design, with an irregular swirling design of metal clad layers, each layer narrower than the one before as an elegant finger of metal juts skywards. It’s design is, of course, inspired by the aurora borealis and is supposed to look its best in mid winter, floodlit, with the northern lights behind its modern form.

The Cathedral of the Northern Lights, or today the Cathedral of the Northern Clouds!

I know nothing about the cathedral, other than the few lines in the Lonely Planet, which speaks mainly about the exterior. I was tempted to look inside, but there was a 50 NOK (€6) charge and I, along with about 10 other people who were in the foyer at the same time as me, balked at paying to see an unknown quantity. I am more than happy to pay to go into any building where I know my money will be well spent, but I have seen too many uninspiring places of worship, as well as many inspiring ones, on this trip to be willing to pay to see something that may be bland and uninteresting.

The Tourist Information Office was little better. To be fair the brochure on Northern Norway that we picked up in Imatra, Finland, it one of, if not the best pieces of official tourist literature that I have ever seen. Beautifully detailed maps with suggested itineraries – I look at it every day. But the Alta Tourist Information Office had little else of interest. I knew, from the OurTour blog, that last year Norwegian Tourism had produced a great booklet on camping. However, the lady in the Tourist Information Office told me it was free and so good that they had all gone.

It is eight days since we were last on a campsite, a record for us timid wildcampers, but in Norway it is so easy. Lots of lovely parking areas and acres of uninhabited wilderness, which “everyman’s right” allows us to use, without paying. What makes it even better are the numerous places to empty one’s cassette and fill up with water. It was the lack of the first of these which has reduced our wildcamping to three or four nights maximum in other locations, including the much vaunted wildcamping heaven that is supposed to be Greece.

Now though, we need use of a washing machine, so we headed for Alta Strand Camping (69.927326, 23.275371). It is set on the banks of a fast flowing salmon river, but other than that and it’s location near Alta, has little to particularly commend it. It’s a good enough site, although it is looking a bit muddy and forlorn in the current weather. We paid 270 NOK (€28.80) including electricity and wifi. The wifi was good when we arrived but seems to have gradually deteriorated as the campsite has filled up. It is well located for tomorrow morning’s trip to the famed Alta Museum, where we hope we have better weather for looking at the pre-historic rock carvings.

One amusing aside for British readers, and anyone else familiar with British slang. As we drove through the outskirts of Alta, towards the campsite, we saw a lovely block of apartments with a name board reading “The Slags”!

Finally I apologise for the lack of photographs today, but if I’d taken any of the landscape it would just have been a series of abstract whites and greys. I hope the cloud cover lifts to a least a few hundred feet tomorrow!