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Category: Norway

Mørkeskiing

Mørkeskiing

Tromsø is now well into mørketid and only gets about four hours of twilight each day, but the city is looking good in the dark. Last week a lot of christmas lights and a huge christmas tree were put up in the centre. The christmas tree was delivered by helicopter and quite a few people squinted down the fjord in wonder as a black dot on the horizon slowly took the form of a flying tree and thundered overhead towards the big square. I think the tree is about six times as tall as Hanneke.

Tromsø Domkirke The flying christmas tree

I’m not usually very keen on getting up early in the morning, but it doesn’t feel good to get up late and realise that the daylight has already faded. For the second sunday in a row I managed to summon sufficient enthusiasm to throw my skies in the car and leave the house before sunrise – that might be a personal record. Unfortunately, getting up hideously early is pretty much required in order to do any significant skiing at the moment. Even with an early start I only had about 4 hours of daylight so I chose to ski up and down any easy hill that I know well called Rødtinden. It was rather cold and the snow was really icy until half way up, but the specular sunrise/sunset made up for that.

Tromsø and Håkøya from Rødtinden Store Blåman from Rødtinden

I was pursued up the mountain by a small and friendly dog which followed me so persistently that I began to ignore it. I was listening to loud music and I wasn’t really aware of its exact position, but it eventually dawned on me the the cheeky monster was standing on the back of skis and had been hitching a ride!!! Alas I couldn’t believe it!

I took this last picture looking westward from the beach near the Kvaløysletta ski centre on my way home. These mountains are all on the mainland and take a while to get to. A tunnel is currently under construction that will make them much more accessible though :-). I’m hoping that this year is going to be a good one for skiing, I recently acquired a brilliant book called Toppturer i Troms (Løp og kjøp!) which describes loads of great skiing routes around Tromsø and I’m itching to try some of them. Most will have to wait for longer days though…

The mountains of Malangen from Kvaløysletta

Mørketid in Tromsø

Mørketid in Tromsø

We started our Saturday with a walk at Telegrafbukta. It was about 12:30 and the sun was setting. We are now officially in “mørketid” – the dark time, but as you can see the sky still gets light and the colours are very pretty!

Tromsø palms silhouetted against the pretty sky My favourite boat house... I can't stop taking photos of it :D

I love this little building, it houses a cafe when the open air museum is open Another favourite place of mine, the jetty at Telegrafbukta

After our walk, we cycled to the city centre to have a look around the shops. I knew the Christmas lights had been put up, so I brought my camera to get some pictures. Tromsø is so pretty at Christmas time 🙂

The city centre all decorated for Christmas Tromsø Cathedral

The Christmas lights have been put up. Hearts are a common theme for Christmas in Norway :) The high street. This is taken at about 14:45 and it's getting very dark

In the evening, I was hoping for some northern lights activity. Although the forecast wasn’t looking too promising, at least the skies were clear! I kept an eye on the webcam, which is very convenient if you don’t want to stand outside (freezing!) all night. At first a faint green glow appeared on the horizon, but then just before 20:00, it exploded across the whole sky! We quickly grabbed warm clothes, camera gear, and a thermos of hot chocolate and jumped in the car. The photos below are taken along Ersfjorden. The lights were dancing all over the sky, it was hard to decide where to point the camera!

The whole sky coloured green, it was amazing!! The lights were dancing all over the sky, I wish I could have taken a video

After a while, the activity died down, and we decided to drive a bit further. We took the road towards Sommarøy, which goes over a very dark mountain pass. The photos below are taken from there. The northern lights had become very diffuse, even though they were still filling the entire sky. On a long exposure (25 seconds) the green still comes out, but to the naked eye it did not have as much colour. While I took the panorama below, some more active northern lights appeared on the horizon, but it didn’t last very long.

Here the northern lights were still filling the whole sky, but they had become quite diffuse. A 25 second exposure brought out the green quite nicely, but in reality we did not see this much colour A panorama of the mountains and aurora. To the far right, an arc of aurora was becoming bright and active

When the hot chocolate was finished, and our feet started to get cold, we decided it was time to go home. Click here to watch an animation of the northern lights last night (wait for the second half of the video) – quite impressive!

A November Afternoon

A November Afternoon

I had a day off today, and since the weather was nice I decided to go out and take some photos. I didn’t get up very early, and at this time of year that means you miss half the day. By the time I reached Hakøya, at about 13:15, the sun had just disappeared behind the mountains. The sunset was pretty, but the light on the opposite sight was even prettier – beautiful pastel pink and blue 🙂

Sunset... taken at 14:30 The colours were even prettier opposite the sunset!

I also stopped at Tisnes, where I found some frozen puddles with really pretty ice formations…

A frozen puddle An artwork of nature :)

The sea/fjord is very shallow here, and some sea ice had formed. I didn’t stay for very long, the last photo is taken at 14:15 and shows the very last light of the day.

The sea is starting to freeze! The last light of the day disappearing, 14:15

I brought some snacks and a thermos with hot tea, a great way to warm up before driving home. The days are so short now, but I am glad I was able to go out and make the most of it 🙂