DAY 14

DAY 14

Another low impact day. There are definitely more excursion opportunities on the trip north compare to the return south. Some people did half – we lost some if Kirkenes and pick some up there as well.


All in all, above the Arctic Circle wasn’t what I think of as arctic cold. But. FYI, locals did say, “Isn’t this warm weather?” And me, wearing long-johns (top and bottom), blue jeans, rain pants, turtle neck, long sleeve shirt, insulated vest, my trusty Scottie Vest, a scarf, “und mine dupplehut” (my term for a knit toque over my L.L.Bean skull cap) and my “Harley Davidson” gloves. Mmm… toasty!


At the Kristiansund stop, about 20 of us piled into a bus for a 40 minute drive to Bergtatt and a tour of a marble mine. About midway we stop for a “photo op”, and I got this shot of our ship heading to its next destination, Molde.



WARNING -- TECHNICAL STUFF, SKIP TO END: Limestone is a sedimentary rock composed of shells and skeletons of marine animals – mainly calcium carbonate + impurities. Submitting limestone to heat, pressure and time causes a recrystallization, which forms marble. If the marble cools slowly without a lot of wiggling around, cracks are minimal and you can cut out big chunks and make Davids, Venuses and Pietas. Therefore, I thought marble would be quarried (open pit), but the marble at this location was too uneconomically deep and was shaft mined. Also, they did not carve out slabs and block, and this despite their claim that theirs was the most pure marble in the world. They blast, collect, pound, crush and grind the marble to a fine powder, which is used in the making of glossy paper (up to 14% marble in National Geographic). Peak production was in the 80’s and 90’s. LCD screens have cramped their style and production dropped to 10%. Then cheap marbles, read more impurities, made them a part time operation. However, they have 40 big, blasted out caverns 750 feet underground connected by 8 miles of tunnels. They have unlimited cooling thanks to a very large underground lake 40 ft deep at 40℉. They are wooing big data companies to put their clouds inside this immune to sunspots mountain with cheap cooling and cheap, green power (hydro/wind). That’s a CEO that thinks out of the box. CONTINUE YOUR REGULAR PROGRAMMING.

We drove up a dirt road replete with a hairpin turn past a couple of resting 65-ton dump trucks and past a couple holes in the mountain. We finally came to our hole and drove in for ¾ mile, coming to a large gallery




This chandelier, and all others, are made of marble from the mine.


We had to don hard hats and life vest before we got on the “boat”. I don’t know why no one (including me) would sit with Francie – it might be that grin which never left her face.


An electric trolling motor moved us through a “maze of twisty little passages, all alike” (a correct identification of this reference will receive a prize).


The water was crystal clear and up to 40 feet deep.


We pulled up to this place where one could eat if everything was not soaking wet.


We all piled out.


They tapped into a cavity collecting the water seeping through the rocks, and we all got a taste. The water was icy cold, but otherwise regular old water.


Back in the boats, and a short cut home. Leaving vests and hats behind, we entered a large hall. Seven hundred fifty feet under ground, we were served vegetable beef soup, as a video of a local rock group played songs in the Elvis style. We kept asking each other, “Is this not strange?”


To this point we had learned almost nothing about the marble mine – including why the hell they were mining it. Happily they showed three videos that were very informative and I was pleased.

This venue receives regular use as a concert hall, seating about 300 people. It always sells out. But really have you been studying my pictures – a nail hammering festival, properly advertised, would sell out.