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Author: Hanneke

I started my first blog when I left the Netherlands (my home country) for an internship in Alaska in 2004, to keep my friends and family updated on my adventures over there. Little did I know it would be more than 13 years before I'd move back to the Netherlands! I spent a year in Toulouse (France) before starting a PhD in meteorology at the University of East Anglia in Norwich (UK) in 2005. That's when I started this current blog, first in Dutch but I soon switched to English. I really enjoyed life in the UK, and was actually planning to stay there after my PhD, but "life is what happens when you're busy making other plans" and I ended up moving to Tromsø in Northern Norway in 2009. Tromsø is a photographer's dream, surrounded by spectacular mountains, with the light ever changing from the midnight sun in summer to the dark days compensated by aurora-filled nights in winter. I learnt Norwegian and got a job as a weather forecaster - I got thrown in at the deep end, doing radio interviews and speaking with fishermen with way-too-strong dialects straight from the beginning, before I was anywhere near fluent in Norwegian :D I survived though, and slowly started to do some research on the side. I got more and more involved in research projects and in August 2015 I moved 2000 km south, to Oslo where I started working 100% as a researcher. A year after moving to Oslo, I met Michiel at a music festival in Brussels :) and we started to travel very frequently between Oslo and Rotterdam, where he lives. You can't do that forever though, and I soon realized I found the perfect "excuse" to finally move back home, something I had been considering many times before. So since July 2017, I'm living in Rotterdam! I'm actually taking some time off before finding a new job, and I'm looking forward to lots of adventures in the near future - so stay tuned!
Excursion to Oldervik

Excursion to Oldervik

Today I organised a photo excursion for members of Tromsø Photoclub – to Oldervik, about an hour’s drive north of Tromsø. The rocks on the beach there are very special: they consist of lots of layers, and the sea has also formed several large potholes (jettegrytter) here. This wasn’t my first visit – but my last visit was 2 years ago.

We were lucky with the weather to start with – when we arrived it was partly cloudy and the light was really pretty. Everybody scattered around to take pictures 🙂

The rocky beach at Oldervik Beautiful rock formations, with view towards Lyngen

Later on it got more cloudy and we even had some rain, but Oldervik is always a beautiful place – no matter the weather 🙂

Here the sea was forming some smaller potholes in the rocks The rocks at Oldervik are really special!

And when it gets a bit darker, it’s fun to take long exposures of frozen waterfalls… there were plenty to be found around the beach!

A frozen waterfall Another part of the frozen waterfall

It was a really fun day, and very nice to get out of Tromsø and play around with my camera. I’ve been really busy lately, so this was a welcome break 🙂

Fløya

Fløya

Long time no blog! October just flew by, I’ll try to post some photos soon. The snow came early to Tromsø this year, and it wasn’t even destroyed by 2 days of rain. Last Saturday, we decided to take the cable car and make the most of a very nice day 🙂 The views were spectacular, as always – but the clouds were really special that day…

This view never gets boring! Tromsø from Storsteinen Tromsø from near the top of Fløya

We walked up to Fløya, we could have skied but the snow was very hard and icy and I prefer to walk anyway. The views from Fløya were magical, the low sun was already colouring all the surrounding mountain tops.

From Fløya, looking towards Tromsdalstinden. Fun weather fact: the cloud with the white top in the middle is a lonely little snow shower that moved north all the way from Vesterålen View towards Malangen

On the way back we stopped at Steinbøhytte, which was still free of snow inside. The snow had built up on one side, but it can get much worse.

Self exposure portrait on top :) (I should have waited until my face returned to its normal colour, haha) Paul in front of Steinbøhytte

The sky was just so pretty, I had to stop all the time to take more photos. This one is taken at 14:15 (too early for sunset!), while we were racing to make the 14:30 cable car back down…

A very pretty sunset, painfully early though! This was at 14:15...

…because I had an evening shift at work waiting for me 🙁 Never mind, even at work I could keep taking photos. They asked me to take a photo of our new fancy sign (with our new fancy logo!). Of course I had to include Rudi, our resident polar bear…

After our hike, I had to go to work. Meet Rudi, our resident polar bear. Oh and we have a fancy new logo and new sign :)

We’re losing 10 minutes of daylight every day now, so it’s extra important to soak up as much sunshine as we can in the coming weeks 🙂

Sessøytinden

Sessøytinden

While climbing Skamtinden, we both commented how the peaks on Sessøya looked really fun to climb. Four days later, we both took a day off and we set off by boat from Ersfjordbotn to reach the beautiful beach on Sessøya. It took about 45 minutes by boat, and total door-to-beach time was only 2 hours!

Drijfsijs on the beach at Sessøya A pretty stream on the beach on Sessøya

We had a quick look around the small village. I don’t think anyone lives here permanently anymore, but there are some really nice houses. We started climbing the slope behind the village, with some great views towards Rekvik and Skamtinden…

The jetty at Sessøya - slightly crooked and falling apart ;) The small village on Sessøya, with in the background a great view of Skamtinden, the mountain we climbed 4 days earlier!

The going was slow, my muscles had not fully recovered from Skamtinden and I almost wanted to give up. The terrain was quite gentle though – only a couple of rocky parts. So we persevered (or rather, Paul made me :P) and we soon reached the first peak at 616 m. From there, a ridge goes to the highest point (Sessøytinden) at 657 m. The last part looked nearly impossibly vertical, with huge drops on one side. We could see the cairn though, and we knew other people had come this way, so we decided to see how far we’d get. In the end, it was some steep scrambling, but nowhere near as impossible as it looked. Two hours and 45 minutes after we started, we reached the top – and the views were really spectacular!

View from Sessøytinden towards Senja and Sommarøy on the right, and most of Kvaløya View in the opposite direction. The island on the left is called Bjørnøya and has quite a lot of houses on it

While on the top, my phone rang – it was Hannah, who was on the top of Bremnestinden at that moment and was wondering if we could see each other. We should have brought binoculars 😀

Håja seen from another unusual angle :) Paul next to the huge cairn, with Sørfugløya in the background

We ate our lunch on top and took lots and lots of photos 🙂

Enjoying the views - some crazy ridges on Sessøya!

For those interested, here is a height profile and map of our hike…

Height profile and map of climbing Sessøytinden

After our well deserved break we hurried back. I had a meeting that evening and our schedule was quite ambitious 😉 We took a shortcut on the way down, and we were back at the boat after about an hour and 15 minutes. We quickly got ready and started our way back to Ersfjordbotn. It had been sunny all day, but while in Ersfjorden, some rain showers appeared out of nowhere. Most of the rain didn’t reach the surface (a phenomenon called virgo), and as it was near sunset, the fall streaks were coloured a spectacular orange. So beautiful!

On the way back, it suddenly started to rain. Some of the rain never reached the ground, a phenomenon called virga - and the sunset coloured the streaks of rain some impressive colours What a view!

Back at Ersfjordbotn, I just had to take a couple more photos…

Fishing boats at Ersfjordbotn I couldn't get enough of the beautiful sunset light on the rain showers

We made it back home just in time for me to change clothes and run to my meeting 😀 I am glad we went though, it was a fantastic trip!