Rotterdam (or Anywhere)

Today we saw the sun for the very last time – for the coming two months it won’t come above the horizon. Last Saturday we ceremonially said goodbye to the sun by eating a mørketidsbolle (dark-time-doughnut) at the beach…

The dark time does have its advantages though – plenty of opportunities for seeing the aurora! And the sad feeling of saying goodbye to the sun was soon forgotten this evening – we got quite a show…

The aurora started as soon as it got dark, but I had to eat something before going out, and I left the house at 17:30. Some clouds were moving in from the south at Ersfjordbotn, so I moved to a place with a view to the north.

There were some clouds here too, but it didn’t matter. I was fiddling with my camera trying to get a photo of a frozen puddle, when I happened to look behind me: WOW!!! The sky had gone crazy!

For a while, fast-moving aurora filled the whole sky – it was very impressive 🙂

It calmed down again, and I decided to drive back towards Tromsø. I made another stop near Håkøya, as I noticed the lights had started dancing again…

And even though the show continued, I drove home for some hot chocolate and photo editing. I got back just after 21:00 – not bad! A great start to the mørketid, bring it on 😀

The aurora activity was high last week, but most nights it was too cloudy to see anything. On Tuesday evening it was raining quite heavily, so I had given up hope. It was near midnight and I considered going to bed, when I received a text message from Eelke: northern lights! I ran outside, and found that it had cleared up completely. There was indeed some aurora, but it was very weak. But then, just before I went back inside, the sky exploded with green aurora. No question about it, I grabbed my camera and headed to Telegrafbukta 🙂 Eelke and Roy joined me shortly afterwards, and we had an amazing couple of hours on the jetty. It was one of those nights where you’re spinning around, never sure in which direction to aim your camera, as there was activity EVERYWHERE. It was beautiful, and the nice thing about these shows so early in the season is that you don’t freeze, I didn’t even need gloves 🙂

Here’s a selection of the photos I took that night…

WHAT A NIGHT!! 🙂 I finally rolled into bed at 2:30 in the morning, which meant I had to change my plans of getting up early to climb a mountain, but it was more than worth it 🙂

The northern lights are back!! Always an exciting moment to see them dance for the first time 🙂 It’s only just about dark enough, but there they are…

Here’s to a new season, and many sleepless nights 😉 And now I better get some sleep, I’m supposed to climb one of the mountains in the photo tomorrow!