Sunny Days & Moonlit Nights

Sunny Days & Moonlit Nights

Last week we had beautiful weather; not a cloud in sight for several days. I was working quite a lot of shifts, but one afternoon I decided to take the long way to work to enjoy the sunshine and take some photos. The yellow house in the photo below (as well as all the other buildings in the photo) belongs to the open air museum at the south tip of Tromsø island. It’s a collection of buildings “rescued” from places all around the area and moved to the museum. The museum is only open for a couple of hours on sundays in the summer season, and even then you can only really visit 2 buildings. Still, the buildings are very pretty. The panorama is taken on my way up the hill, looking back at the fjord and the only farm area on Tromsø island.

These buildings belong to the open air museum at the south tip of Tromsø island A view towards the farm area at Holt

We had quite a lot of new snow the week before… though this person probably hasn’t cleared his car for the whole winter. As the streets are cleared by snowploughs, the piles of snow directly next to the road can become very high. Some traffic signs get buried, as do some of the bus stands – at this one you’ll have to dig if you want to read the time table 😀

Some people don't seem to need their car all winter! The new snow causes some minor problems: you have to dig to read the timetable of the bus!

I worked a late shift that day, and at about 22:00, the most amazing northern lights appeared. I watched from the roof of the institute for a bit, hoping it would last for a while so I could take some photos after work. At 23:00, I was done with work, but the northern lights had also disappeared. I decided to take a chance and drive to a dark place anyway. Well, “dark”, that was actually impossible to find as the moonlight was incredibly bright that night! I drove into a valley which is not very populated. The road leads to a ferry that had stopped for the night, so there was hardly any traffic. It was so beautiful in the moonlight… I stopped to take some photos, hoping the northern lights would reappear. Unfortunately, they never did, but I didn’t regret going as it was beautiful nonetheless.

The valley leading from Ramfjorden to Breivik. It was so incredibly clear in the moonlight - and incredibly cold too! The moon shining through the trees

I had the next day off, and convinced Paul to take a day off too. We drove to Nordkjosbotn, about an hour inland from Tromsø. We saw this majestic eagle on the sea ice of one of the fjords…

A big eagle on a frozen fjord

We went snowshoeing in a valley, enjoying the sunshine. The wind was very strong, so we opted for a sheltered valley instead of a windy mountain top. We watched the sun go down 🙂

Snowshoeing Paul enjoying the last rays of sunlight

And the moon rise… In this photo you can also see how windy it is higher up in the mountains – lots of snow blowing from the top!

The moon rising above the mountains

We had dinner at Nordkjosbotn, and waited for the darkness to come. We found a nice beach where we waited for the northern lights to appear… this time we were lucky! They weren’t very active, this band stayed in the same place all evening. It was very dim most of the time (also having to compete with the bright moonlight), but at times it would become brighter.

Northern lights seen from a beach This band stayed pretty much in the same place for hours, but the brightness kept changing

With the bright moonlight, we also took a self portrait 🙂 and one of our shadows to show just how sharp they were. I kept looking behind me for some bright street lamp which wasn’t there 😀

The bright moonlight enabled us to take a nice Valentines portrait :) Showing how sharp our shadows were in the bright moonlight!

It was a beautiful week… and we ended it by going to Senja for the weekend. I have lots of photos of that trip, now I only have to find the time to post them here 🙂 stay tuned!

7 thoughts on “Sunny Days & Moonlit Nights

  1. Beautiful photos as always! The auroras are amazing, and I’m a little jealous that you still have so much snow. It’s turning into an early spring here, lol. I miss the snow.

    Stay warm and keep the lovely pictures coming! 😉

    1. Thanks Ben 🙂 Your comment about us “still” having so much snow made me smile – spring is still a long way away and I am sure we’ll get even more. We usually reach maximum snow depth by the end of March or so. In the mean time, I’ll be jealous of your spring weather 😉

      Take care!

  2. Hanneke, I just LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the trees with the moon behind them and the shadows! STUNNING!

    And of course, your Northern Lights photos are awesome too. I sure wish we had some open water for me to shoot the lights over. I suppose I shall count myself lucky that I get to see them. But WOW – what a view you have!

    Love all the photos – and especially those with you in them. 🙂

    Susan

    1. Thanks Susan, you make me shy! The full moon was just so incredibly bright, it was beautiful, and magical to see it shine through the trees like that.

      Having open water is a huge help in getting nice photos – anywhere near the water will give a great photo basically, especially when you can catch the reflection. We are very lucky with that – thanks to the Warm Gulf Stream 😀

      All the best from Norway 🙂

  3. Hanneke- Good to see the pictures of your nice week’s weather. They are fanastic as usual and the one of Paul and you in the moomlight is very clever. Hope the weather is the same in a couple of weeks time! Dave

  4. Hei.
    Det er en stund siden jeg besøkte siden deres men jeg må bare skrive at dere er utrolig flinke til å ta bilder!!!! kjempe bra!
    Artig å komme innom å få sett som mange flotte ting :). spesielt månen og nordlyset. tusen Takk!

    hilsen fra Trondheim 😉

    1. Tusen takk 🙂 Tror ikke vi har sett sola veldig ofte etter dette, men nå er sola endelig tilbake 🙂

      Gratulerer med liten Mathilde, så søtt 🙂
      Hilsen fra Tromsø!

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