Rotterdam (or Anywhere)

Sometimes I don’t manage to catch up with my blog – new adventures are waiting, more photos are added to the pile, and after a while it becomes “old news” and I skip to more recent trips. Sometimes I have to make exceptions though 🙂 the photos in this blog are more than 3 months old but this trip was too good to be skipped over!

It was a day where nothing went as planned, and yet it turned into a perfect day 🙂 What we thought would be the last ski trip of the season turned into the first summer trip 😀 but let’s start at the beginning…

Paul was keen to go skiing in the Lyngen Alps, and we planned a daytrip to Daltinden. The Lyngen Alps are too extreme for my liking, but I decided to come along anyway, and play around on snowshoes – possibly to a glacier – while Paul was skiing. The weather was beautiful, but we soon found out that the Lyngen Alps are a real weather divide: sunny and blue skies on the west side; a grey sky with low clouds on the east side. Daltinden is on the east side, and Paul decided to abandon the trip as the top of the mountain was in the clouds. We drove around Lyngen for a while, contemplating whether we should find a different mountain on the west side – but it was getting late in the day and we knew nothing about the mountains there and felt underprepared. In the end we settled onto a walk on the coast, at the very northern tip of the Lyngen peninsula (Nordklubben). We were in for a treat!

From the top of a 100 m high hill, we had a fantastic view in all directions – and below we could see a lighthouse with a cabin. We decided to visit the lighthouse, but on the way there got sidetracked when we saw the wreck of a ship on the shore.

The ship had broken in two, so badly that at first we thought the different parts must belong to two ships.

It was impressive to see such a damaged ship, with bent metal everywhere – it makes you realize how powerful the forces of nature can be around here!

We then continued to the lighthouse. To our pleasant surprise, the cabin was open 🙂 We were quite hungry and couldn’t resist the can of Lapskaus that we found in the cabin – in turn we left behind some freeze dried food that we had with us. We lit the stove to warm up the food…

The cabin was very cosy inside, with lots of interesting items and a guestbook full of fascinating stories. Apparently the cabin was neglected when some German guys decided to adopt it. They brought building materials all the way from Germany, and have renovated the cabin, painted the outside, repaired a few things… all completely voluntary and at their own initiative – impressive kindness! The cabin is open to everyone, and there is a loft where you can sleep (bring a sleeping bag and a mat). Some people spent quite long periods here, and they write deep philosophical stories in the guestbook 😀

From the lighthouse cabin you have a perfect view to the north, and some people come to see the midnight sun from there. It was still to early for midnight sun, but the days are long. At around 21:00, the northbound and southbound Hurtigruten ships meet right in front of the cabin. This is always a big thing, the ships hoot at each other, and people are out on the deck to wave at the other ship. I never really understood this to be honest 😉 – there are 11 ships and they paths cross every day – but hey, it’s kind of cute. That day, it was the Polarlys and the Vesterålen that crossed paths.

After watching this “spectacle”, it was time to head back to the car. The sunset was really pretty, and as a bonus we saw a group of porpoises swimming in front of the wind turbines of Vannøya, and Nord-Fugløya.

We missed the last ferry connection, which meant we had to drive the long way home. We were very tired after a long day, but when the sky turned a deep red, pink and orange around 23:00 we just had to make another photo stop…

What a perfect day! Sometimes it’s really nice when nothing goes to plan, and you let the day surprise you 🙂

September is my favourite month in Tromsø 🙂 There is something about the crisp freshness of the air, the yellow autumn colours, the sky glowing red long after sunset and the return of the aurora that always makes me very happy. When I woke up (after a night shift) to a beautiful sunny day, I very quickly decided to do something I had dreamt of for a long time: a solo camping trip. (Paul is at sea again, otherwise he would have been more than welcome to join 😀 but I actually wanted to see if I could do this by myself).

Anyway… I woke up at 14:30, and by 16:00 I was fully packed and on my way 😀 My bag weighed 20 kg, mainly because I dragged my very sturdy tripod up the mountain 😉 I decided to go up Smørstabben/Bruna, at Grøtfjorden. It looked like a nice grassy plateau on the top, and it wasn’t too extreme a hike as you can park at 160 m. It was a slow and sweaty affair to climb the ridge up to 500 m, but I made it 🙂 and the views were SO worth it…

I walked around for a bit, trying to find a place to pitch the tent. There were plenty of nice places, but I also wanted the tent to feature in my photos, so I had to think composition as well as grassy/flat/dry 😉 Finally I found a nice grassy spot next to a little stream.

I had dinner – a baguette and potato salad, I didn’t want to make the bag even heaver by taking cooking equipment. After that I explored further up towards Bruna. I discovered where the little stream came from: a pretty lake 🙂 and I watched the sunset.

I enjoyed the view from Bruna – straight down to Storvatnet, I could see my car way below 🙂 I continued to Brattfjellet, another top on the plateau.

I returned to my tent and waited for darkness to fall. The sky was glowing orange on the horizon, and I kept taking photos – it was so pretty! At some point some clouds rolled in, and the stars came out… The northern lights never made an appearance, but I didn’t really mind. I did stay up for a long time, listening to an audio book in the tent – a surreal experience to hear Julian Barnes soothing voice while completely alone on a mountain top 🙂

It had been quite a warm day, but I found it cold sleeping in the tent. And worst of all, at 06:30 I woke up to RAIN. Which wasn’t forecasted at all, and I had so much faith in the forecast that I hadn’t brought any waterproof clothes. Oops. I just went back to sleep, hoping it would pass. I woke up again at 9, and luckily it was dry by then. The views were so different in cloudy weather, with fog rolling in from the sea.

I walked in and out of the fog on my way down. These two photos below are taken less than a minute apart 😀 the views kept changing, it was really fascinating.

The last part of the hike goes through a forest. Here I passed a mountain stream near a cabin, just before I got back to the car.

I was quite tired after this trip – from not sleeping so well in the tent, and from a sore back and shoulders from carrying so much weight. I was very proud of going on this solo camping trip though 🙂 and worth all the sweat and pain! Next time, I might try to convince Paul to  carry half my stuff join me on a beautiful trip 😉