Rotterdam (or Anywhere) – Page 84 – Adventures in the Netherlands & around the world

Autumn Mist

08/09/2010 Hanneke

This morning when I opened the blinds – still half asleep – I noticed fog over the fjord. The sun was shining, which made the fog look very bright white. So pretty! I grabbed my camera bag and an apple for breakfast, and went out to take photos. Early morning mist is quite common on clear days, especially in autumn, but it tends to disappear quickly when the sun is strong enough to burn it away. It was 11 when I got up (my daily rhythm still disturbed by yesterday’s night shift) so I knew it probably wouldn’t last much longer.

These photos are taken at Telegrafbukta, this is the jetty that I took the northern lights photos from two weeks ago. The second photo is zoomed out so you can see the blue sky above the mist. I think the bright area would form a fog bow (rainbow without colours) if there had been enough fog.

I watched some ships looming out of the mist – an impressive sight. All around Telegrafbukta, there were groups of students (from a high school I think) doing some kind of project about marine life. They also seemed to use the boat in the second photo, it came to the jetty a few times. How cool is that!

The autumn colours are beautiful at the moment! When the sun comes out and the sky is blue, it just looks so pretty 🙂

The mist started to disappear, in the photo below you can see there are only a few patches remaining. There were several people walking around, taking photos. I talked to one guy who showed me his photos from earlier this morning… he made me very jealous 😀 The mist had been denser then, and he took beautiful photos of the bridge and the city centre. I should get up earlier next time!

I thought about going to one of the bridges, or up Fjellheisen, but the mist had completely disappeared by then. Instead I drove to Prestvannet, the lake on top of Tromsø island. On sunny days it’s not very difficult to take nice photos there 🙂 with Tromsdalstinden reflected in the lake and the colourful trees.

What a beautiful morning! It was great to be out and take photos again. Can you believe I haven’t taken any photos since the northern light photos 2 weeks ago? It was a very busy time, I’ve been working a lot and Paul was getting ready for his annual research cruise. He’s the cruise leader this year which meant he had lots of organisational things to take care of. He flew to Longyearbyen to board the ship there, but he’ll come back to Tromsø by ship at the end of this month.

Tonight my brother and his girlfriend are arriving in Tromsø, it looks like they’re going to be extremely lucky with the weather – we’re supposed to have sunshine until Sunday. Perfect! I have two days off, so we’re planning to go hiking and stay in one of the mountain huts. I’m really looking forward 🙂 I’m keeping my fingers crossed that we’ll also see the northern lights 😀

Aurora in August

25/08/2010 Hanneke

Even though I don’t really want the summer to end – especially not when we finally have some really sunny weather lately – I’ve been impatiently waiting for the nights to get dark enough to see the aurora. I read on Spaceweather that auroras were forecasted for tonight, so I kept an eye on the sky, even though I didn’t think it would be dark enough yet, especially with the full moon out as well. Oh how exciting when I stepped outside and saw beautiful aurora dancing in the sky – I was literally jumping for joy 😀

I quickly went to the jetty at Telegrafbukta with my camera. The show didn’t last very long, but it was beautiful. Even the bright full moon couldn’t overpower them!

When the “lights went out”, I stayed for a while longer hoping they would come back. The moon was reflected in the fjord, it was beautiful. To entertain myself, I took a self portrait 🙂

Less than 5 months ago, I was at the same place enjoying the last aurora of the season. It’s so exciting to be at the start of a new season 🙂

Ti på Topp 2010: Grønnlibruna & Ørnfløya

24/08/2010 Hanneke

I went up Grønnlibruna one morning in July before a late shift at work. Grønnlibruna is 401 m high. I took the shorter route up from Håkøybotn. I have been to Grønnlibruna twice before (once on snowshoes and one failed attempt in autumn) but always from Straumsbukta. I much prefer the route from Håkøybotn, it’s a lot shorter and very direct (the other route goes up to a slightly lower top, then down to a valley and up to the actual top). The total length was 7.1 km and it took me 2 hours and 45 minutes (about 1.5 hours up, a short break on top, and down in one hour).

I didn’t have very good weather. The weather forecast (which I wrote myself :D) promised the weather would improve very quickly, and I was hoping for sun on the top. However it took a bit longer to clear up, and in the end the sun came out when I drove back to town! I didn’t take a lot of photos, but it was a very nice walk. The first part goes through fairytale forest with flowers everywhere. The top is more rocky and the view was nice, even with all the clouds.

More recently, Paul and I went up Ørnfløya on a Friday evening. It was going to rain all weekend, so we decided to make the most of the last bit of good weather. Ørnfløya is near Sommarøy and it’s quite a drive from Tromsø (about an hour). It’s by far the easiest of all tops though, it’s only 160 m high and the total walk is 2.2 km. It took us 25 minutes to reach the top, and about the same to come down.

We were hoping to watch the sunset from the top, but although we reached the top just in time (at 22:00), the sun had already disappeared behind a layer of clouds. Still, the view was very nice! It’s great to see Sommarøy from above.

We didn’t stay on the top very long as it was getting quite chilly. We drove to Sommarøy and enjoyed a cup of tea on a beach there. It was a quiet evening and we watched some seagulls fight with what we think was an otter. The tide was coming in very strongly and we watched a school of small fish fight with the current while being attacked by bigger fish. Life is unfair 😉

The clouds were really pretty! The midnight sun is gone since late July, but at 23:30 it was still pretty light. It’s changing very quickly though, this was only a week and a half ago, but now we do have real darkness!