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Category: Norway

Midnight Sun Adventures

Midnight Sun Adventures

After a wonderful time in Switzerland, I flew back to Norwich – back to work, back to reality… I’m kind of stuck here on concrete-campus, working hard. As this blog is being neglected at the moment, I thought I’d show some photos from the week I spent in Tromsø in early June. With 24 hours of daylight, it was great to go for trips in the evening and not worrying about it getting dark!

This first photo shows Rekvik, a sleepy little village located at the end of a road. Very pretty!

On the way back, we stopped near the fjord to take some photos of the beautiful reflections:

A few days later we went for a cycle ride. The great thing about our car is that you can easily throw things in the back – it fits both our bikes quite easily. We wanted to cycle along a fjord, but this way we could skip the first bit that was very hilly ;). After about an hour we had a nice break on a newbuilt jetty. While we had some snacks, I heard some psssssss noises coming from Paul’s bike – good timing for a puncture! At least we were in a convenient location for fixing it…

We cycled until Sandeshamn, a small villages (only a few houses) around some very beautiful sandy beaches! The water almost looked inviting enough for a swim – but neither the air or water temperature was really warm enough for that!

Looking back at those photos, I really wish I was in Tromsø! I’m going back for almost a month though, at the end of this month – really looking forward to that!

Back in Tromsø

Back in Tromsø

Sorry for the long silence on this blog! Last Sunday, the KV Svalbard arrived back in Tromsø and Paul’s cruise is over now. I was supposed to fly here tonight, but I changed my ticket and arrived on Saturday instead. Paul knew nothing about this and it was fun to surprise him early Sunday morning – still asleep in his cabin, hehe.

They had an “open ship” on Sunday, for anyone interested in the ship or the science. The scientists presented what they had done on the cruise. Here’s Paul explaining how the Arctic Ocean works…

I was around for most of the day and later when I went home, I saw the ship going under the bridge on its way to the dock where they were going to unload the ship.

Tromsø has changed a lot since we were last here! Hardly any snow left except high on the mountains, trees are turning green and there are lots of flowers around. The weather has been sunny and warm as well, very nice! This was yesterday in the city centre…

I’m only here until Sunday morning, when I start my crazy tour of Europe – first a conference in Sweden, then 2 weeks of summer school in the French Alps and then a few days of holiday in Switzerland!! It will be very busy and lots of traveling, but I’m looking forward to it. Especially to being back in Switzerland (my favourite country!) – it’s been way too long since I was last there!

The midnight sun has arrived here so the days are very long. If the weather stays this nice, we’ll sure go for a couple of trips – as soon as the car is fixed! It’s been standing still for too long and the battery is completely flat. I’m going to buy a charger today so that should fix the problem. Hopefully more photos soon!

Snowshoeing up Grønnlibruna

Snowshoeing up Grønnlibruna

Last Sunday we planned another attempt to the top of Tromsdalstinden (a.k.a. “The Beast…) but we decided to abandon that plan when we found out it was an extremely windy day. Tromsdalstinden was not actually visible (despite clear skies) because of all the blowing snow! Instead we drove to a village called Straumsbukta. We found a valley on the map that looked like it should be out of the wind. And indeed it was 🙂

The valley is very beautiful. In Summer there are marshes, now just mostly big empty spaces. We didn’t ski this time, we used the army snowshoes that Paul bought a few weeks ago for a bargain price. I am not exactly “army-sized” so they are a bit big for me but they work fine!

The second photo (below) is taken on the hill. Going steeply uphill is not that easy with such big snowshoes, and quite tiring – the trees became my best friend 😉 good for a little break.

In the middle of the forest we found tracks. We assumed from a skier, but when we looked closely, they were from a moose! Wow he made such deep tracks, very impressive! The tracks looked quite recent but we didn’t get to meet Mr Moose himself…

In the other photo I am trying to work out where we are… we actually climbed up quite a bit higher than we thought. Nice 😉

We had a nice view over the valley and the sunset – these photos are taken at 19:30, it’s getting very light up here these days.

We reached the top of Petterbolhaugen, at 367m. Click on the left photo to see what the army snowshoes are like! They actually have good bindings and quite good grip.

I was quite tired by the time we got up there, but we found that Grønnlibruna (400m) was blocking our view of Tromsø… and it was not that much further… so even though it was late, we decided to continue. It didn’t take that long, and the view of Tromsø was nice indeed. Unfortunately it had gotten too dark for good photos by then though. We got back to the car very late, and quite exhausted, but it was a nice trip!

Time is flying, and I’m soon going back to Norwich for a while. Paul is preparing to go to sea until early June, a very long cruise! They do get a few days off in the middle, at Spitsbergen, and I decided to fly up there as well, I’m very excited about going there!!

Spring has also arrived to Tromsø, even if it still looks very wintry. The constant dripping of the snow melting is getting louder and louder. Many of the streets are snow/ice free now – makes walking a lot easier 🙂 The birds are coming back as well, which is really nice. I’m passing through Tromsø on my way to Spitsbergen in early May, will be interesting to see the changes by then!

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