Grense Jakobselv Norway - or The End of the Road

is as far as we can go on the 886. We drove past the Russian Boader Post East of Kirkeness and as we have no Russian Visas turned North on to a bumpy dirt road that follows the Jakobselva river to its mouth at the Barents Sea. The middle of river forms the border with Russia and is only a few meters wide as it runs next to the dirt road.

The boarder is marked with green and red poles on the Russian Side and Yellow poles on the Norwegian Side.

Although it would be easy to simply walk across the shallow river to Russia as there are no fences, crossing the border here is not allowed and military boarder guards patrol both sides. The temptation to cross was there but the thought of whatever the consequences may be was a sufficient deterrent.

The road ends next to the ocean we reversed the Hymermobile into our overnight parking spot to give the bedroom windows an uninterrupted view over the ocean so we could lay in bed Whale watching out of all three windows!! An SMS from the O2 network welcomes us to Russia and that overseas call cost are 35p per min (still cheaper than a mobile in Australia!!) .

In the village (3 houses and a couple of fishing shacks) there is a stone chapel built in 1869 called King Oscar II’s Chapel. The church was built to reinforce Norway’s territorial claim to the area, and was named after Oscar II of Sweden and Norway.