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Month: August 2008

Nordtinden (640 m)

Nordtinden (640 m)

Last Sunday was a stunning day, and we decided to climb Nordtinden (640 m – half a “beast” ). We drove to Kvaløyvågen, to the north of Tromsø and started following a dirt road (leading to Skulsfjorden) from there. Halfway we turned right and up the mountain. There wasn’t really a path, though we kept finding bits of a path every now and then. This is the first part – me trying to read the map and Paul walking up…

The higher we got, the better the views got (do I get bonus points for the logic?), and we also found this nice seat to enjoy the view from!

After a few hours we reached the top! The second photo shows Paul with the logbook that can be found in the cairn. To me this is so Norwegian… they like signing logbooks everywhere! Not only at the top of a mountain, sometimes in the middle of nowhere you find one full of long stories written by hikers/skiers. This one was started in 1987!!

It lives in a beautifully decorated metal box, which fits into a slot in the cairn…

The views from the top were stunning, as you can see the open ocean and a lot of islands and fjords. We were so lucky with the weather too!

We decided it was boring to go back the same way we came… but the route we chose instead does not deserve the name “unmarked path” (as was indicated on our map) at all!! It was quite a steep slope full of mossy (slippery!) rocks where you often needed your hands to safely climb down. Quite hard work! We kept looking longingly at the flat bit at the bottom… only to find it was a swamp…

I did find out that swamps are actually quite comfy to walk through, as long as you don’t sink in too deep (and you don’t care about muddy boots). It was getting dark and the sunset was pretty:

The last part of our route took us through a forest, but the floor was covered with big rocks overgrown with moss. You never knew when you would step into another hole between the rocks. It was pretty but tough going so we were very relieved when we finally hit the tractor road which led us back to the car.

The weather is still very nice, but unfortunately we are busy packing boxes, finding furniture and moving house. Almost everything is in boxes at the moment, and tonight we’re going to move everything to our new flat. I don’t think we’ll have internet there for a while, so I thought I’d upload this blog while I still can! I’m back in England from Saturday, but it might take a while before this blog is updated again. Paul will be at sea for 3 weeks and does not have an internet connection, so there’ll be no news from him either. Hopefully he’ll be able to share some pictures when he gets back 🙂

Colours

Colours

I took my parents to the botanical garden in Tromsø last Monday. We were lucky, it was a very sunny day! The garden is beautiful, and very large. So many plants and flowers from all corners of the world. We spent several hours there and took many photos of all the colourful flowers…

The little house in the photo above is a small cafe which also serves waffles – yummy!!! A very nice end to our visit. We walked back over the “ski” trails on top of Tromsø island. It’s only August, but the signs of autumn are already there – mushrooms and blueberries.

We spent the next day in the centre of Tromsø. There was a market on the main square and we just wandered around and visited lots of shops. These two photos are taken from the main square…

My mum had to visit this wool-shop of course! 🙂

Suddenly we were surrounded by police cars and ambulances – the hot dog seller in the square had been stabbed! We were very close by and saw the stabber being arrested and the victim being picked up by an ambulance. Luckily, we later read in the papers that he survived and was already home the next day. Apparently they had some argument about selling mobile phone sim cards -the other guy also runs a similar kiosk in the city centre! It was quite a bizarre experience, especially in a town like Tromsø where normally not much happens. In the photo below you can see “exhibit nr 4” – a ketchup bottle…

My parents stayed another day, and then took the Hurtigruten south on Wednesday night (taking their camper van onboard). They are arriving in Bergen tomorrow, from where they will drive back to the Netherlands. Must be quite a nice trip, if they manage to ignore the many crazy cruise-ship passengers, hehe.

Time is flying, I only have one week left here before coming back to Norwich. We’re moving house in a few days. We’re not really looking forward to it, as we’re really going to miss our current flat and its view! We won’t have much time to get used to our new place, as Paul flies to Longyearbyen (Spitsbergen) on Friday to join another research cruise for 3 weeks, and I’m flying back to London on Saturday morning. We’re planning to go for a nice walk tomorrow, I hope I can find some time to post some more photos!

Some photos

Some photos

We haven’t been on any adventures lately – unfortunately the weather hasn’t been very good. Here are some random photos, mostly taken today. My parents are visiting, so we’ve been going around Tromsø…

A Himalayan poppy (with Paul in the background) and the Hurtigruten ship “Trollfjord” – it had just cleared up after a rainy morning (this was last week) and the reflections in the puddles were very nice.

Below a photo of the docks in Tromsø. The camera was accidently set to black and white, but I’m quite happy with the result! The other photo is taken by Paul while we visited the Nord Norsk Kunst Museum – a free art museum in the city center. They have very cool white screens in front of the windows that work well as a background for photos 😉

After lots of rain, the skies suddenly cleared this evening. I went for a walk with Paul and my dad. We took the “lysløpe” track, last time we were there, we were on skis! My dad found a pair of walking poles that he’s getting quite attached to…

The views were beautiful! The days of the midnight sun are behind us now, the days are quickly getting shorter. A pity, but it does mean that sunsets are back!

We walked as far as this very red church. The other photo was taken when we got back to the flat, and we saw the moon rising from behind Tromsdalstinden – beautiful!