Tuesday 31 October

Early this morning our boat docks at Farsund. It will then sail on to Kristiansand, but we disembark and hop (literally) on to a bus for a complete tour of the South Cape. We so loved the North Cape and fancy having a look at its anthises.

We know we’re on the south coast because this is where the holiday houses are. Each with their own boat house and for those not quite so lucky it’s a short walk to the marina. We vary between coastline and inland farms – again small but very well kept.

Our first stop is a world famous (even though we have never heard of it) restaurant, Under. This is an underwater restaurant and the dining room is 5.5 metres below sea level. It is an absolute triumph in design, both outside and in. One has the unique view of life underwater, and the interior lighting reflects the northern lights

The seating capacity is 40 and I’m planning on making a booking. Under has one Michelin Star and I’m sure the food is as miraculous as the surroundings. I’m happy to include 38 of our readers in the booking, so long as you BYOCC.

Under, like many famous places, is set pretty much in the middle of nowhere but reputation keeps it alive

From here, still in awe, we went to Lindenses, the south cape. You can see that we travelled from the Nordkapp to Sudkapp

This is the only full time manned lighthouse in Norway. Here it is

This is the lighthouse keeper’s house

And this is the lighthouse keeper

It was a long climb up to the lighthouse, but of course that wasn’t enough for Cherrie. She climbed to the top of the lighthouse itself. And took these

I managed to make it to the base of the lighthouse, which I must say was no mean feat. Especially on mean feet. She watched me all the way

We bunkered down on the way back, and played a spot of hopscotch. I mean what other sort of scotch could I play?

We proceeded on, heading east, and stopped at the town of Mandal, through which flows the Mandal River. This is famous for its salmon and a lucky angler recently hooked a 13kg salmon here. His forebear did too

And his missus danced with one

I know it’s hard to believe but, believe it or not, our next stop was a winery. Whodathoughtit? The wine didn’t taste quite as good as the vines looked

In better condition were the billsau sheep, although they ran away when an American woman yelled at them how beautiful they were. We also attended a basket weaving workshop, all of which was preferable to tasting more wine and made us feel less fleeced

We reboarded the ship at Kristiansand, on the south east coast of Norway.

Our final dinner on board tonight was shared with Jeremy and Patricia. We had made a booking at the Brasserie (rather than the fine dining or the bistro) and as soon as we entered we identified our table.

Now before you accuse the Nords of being ageist, take note that we had pre-ordered the dry aged beef. This has been hanging in the (presumably chilled) glass cabinet outside the restaurant since we boarded, right next to the glass tank the king crab was still trying to get out of. An order of the aged beef requires 24 hours notice, not sure why, and is a ‘big thing’. As a pair of big things ourselves, plus our British friends who are quite the opposite of that description, we fancied a flash beef meal to celebrate our wonderful journey and our friendship

And so the cruise on the MS Trollfjord comes to an end. Tomorrow morning at 8am we disembark in Oslo. It has been a magnificent journey and surpassed all our expectations. Very comfortable ship, wonderful crew, great food, smooth sailing, perfect weather and the scenery…oh the scenery. How lucky we are