Rotterdam (or Anywhere)

On July 1st the weather in Tromsø was grey and overcast. Hanneke and her colleague Trond were sitting in the meteorological office looking at a satellite image showing the sea of clouds when they noticed one dark pixel. That pixel was the top of Tromsdalstinden poking through the clouds. Almost since arriving in Tromsø I have dreamed about standing above the clouds on top of Tinden, but without a private meteorologist it was a difficult dream to realise. From Tromsø I could never see whether the top was above the cloud or just in the cloud. Today was my chance! So based on a single pixel I threw on some clothes, drove to the bottom of the mountain (instead of the office) and started climbing towards a layer of thick cloud and zero visibility. Hanneke and Trond thought the conditions might only last for a few hours, so I was against the clock. I left without breakfast and without charging the batteries for my GPS. A fist full of mars bars and a compass would have to do.

I headed to the top as fast as I could, but above 500 m I was  hindered by a lot by deep snow which was still on the ground. I thought I could walk around the few patches that remained in July, but they were much bigger than I thought. Trudging through snow in the cloud was not much fun. I began to worry that it would be in vain. I hoped I hadn’t taken a day off just to wander around on my own in a cloud!

At 1000 m I was beginning to lose faith in the pixel, when I noticed a strange phenomenon. Here in the mist, rocks felt really warm to the touch. They must have seen some sun not long ago!! I stepped up the pace, and a patch of blue sky began to emerge through the mist. The cloud top was very well defined when I crossed it – within a few steps the visibility went from zero to almost infinite! It was like putting my head above the surface of a swimming pool.

The pictures below show the view from the top, about 100 m above the clouds. The peaks in the distance are the Lyngen Alps. I spent more than two hours on the top enjoying the sunshine in a t-shirt.

While on the top, I took this time-lapse video of the clouds sweeping past Tromsdalstinden. It was almost like standing on a ship and watching the waves roll past.

Just before I left another person emerged from the cloud below – he turned out to be a pilot who had seen the peak sticking out before landing in Tromsø.  He had literally run up there afterwards! Another pilot promised to try and take a photo of him on the summit. That would have been a cool picture – but just before the plane was due to take off, the cloud level rose, and we were surrounded by the whiteness again! Nevermind – we were content in the knowledge that we had stolen ourselves an extra day of sun!

Paul’s parents came to see us three weeks ago, during the last weekend of June. June was very rainy in Tromsø (120 mm fell) – we were only 3 mm away from breaking the all time record! It rained most of the days while they were here as well, but we still went out every day. On the first day we drove to Grøtfjord for a walk on the beach. Not surprisingly we were the only ones there!

It was a very cold day, about 8 degrees! I regretted not bringing gloves, I got so cold. But we enjoyed our walk on the beach. There was an oystercatcher who had a nest somewhere near the beach, he got very alarmed when we came near and flew in circles around us.

In Tromvik we found this gull with a nest on top of some kind of refrigerated container! We continued all the way to the end of the road, in Rekvik. We really liked this house on the coast…

We walked along the coast for a bit, and came to a beach with very red rocks. I’ve never seen that around here before! The rock formations on the beach were very interesting too.

Group portrait on the beach 🙂 The other photo shows the path that follows the coast.

On the way home we saw this reindeer next to the road!

The next day we drove to Sommarøy where we went for a walk. Paul’s parents were attacked by this huge seagull! If you come to near to their nest, they’ll attack you by diving at you repeatedly. They don’t actually come that near and I don’t think they’d actually hit you, but it’s really quite scary when it happens to you! There were some gulls near our house that did the same thing for a while and I didn’t enjoy it. Fortunately there were also friendly birds around there 🙂 We saw a lot of ducks with baby ducks, so cute!

These rorbuer (fishermens’ cottages) are owned by the hotel, must be nice to stay in them! I am not sure what the “house on sticks” in the other photo is used for, probably just for storing fishing gear.

This is a pretty boathouse with grass on the roof. We also met this funny looking goat 🙂

And on the way back, we saw a group of reindeer!

On their last day in Tromsø, the sun finally came out! And what a difference that makes… We went for a walk around Telegrafbukta, enjoying the sunshine. Of course I had to take another photo of my favourite boathouse 🙂

We also made a short visit to the botanical garden, mostly to visit their cafe and eat waffles, mmmmmmmm 😀

So far, July hasn’t been very summary either – still a lot of cloudy and cold days. Fortunately every once in a while there is a nice evening or even almost a day – and you need to take advantage of them when they come around! My parents arrived yesterday, on a beautiful sunny day – but today we are back to nonstop rain and low clouds. Good day to spend inside finally catching up with my blog 😀