I got up reasonably early and was out of the room by 9:30am.
I drove south today along the E8 for about 10 miles before turning right onto a small road which hugged the coast of Ramfjorden and Balsfjorden. The weather was showery but there were some clear periods. At least the visibility was reasonable and the cloud base high enough that you could see the tops of the mountains, for a change.
The road rejoined the E8 about another 8 miles south of where I turned off, but my journey had been about 20 miles. I continued driving south along the E8. Unfortunately, pretty well every place with a good view didn’t have a lay-by and as you can’t stop on the side of Norwegian roads I couldn’t get a photo. Oh well.
Also, I think I got confused by the Norwegian speed limits so I might have been caught by one of their speed cameras. I’m not sure though. The speed limit may actually have been 90km/h or 80km/h and I was doing 90km/h. I wish that they’d be more explicit. (At the end of a 30 zone the speed limit reverts to what it was before the 30 zone, which could be 50, 60 or 70. At the end of a 50 zone, again, the speed limit reverts to the previous limit, etc. But at the end of a 60 zone does it revert to the previous speed limit or 80km/h, the national speed limit, if the limit before the 60 was 90?)
Anyway, I drove all the way down to Heia (via Nordkjosbotn which is a good name for a place if ever there was one) where, in a lay-by, were a number of north american indian tents (not teepees as that’s the name only one of the tribes used) being used as small shops to sell things such as snacks to tourists. Wierd! The lay-by also seems to be a congregational point for the local bikers.
By this point the weather had closed in so, after eating my lunch, I turned back hand headed back to Tromsø.
Just before Tromsdalen I turned off the road to visit the war museum. It was quite a small place with ephemera from world war II and at least some English language explanations. Basically, it is based in the last remaining German gun battery in the area. Within the control room was an exhibition on the Turpitz and its final destruction by Lancaster bombers in 1944.
After this I returned to base, ate dinner and spent the evening watching telly with one of the other house mates, a nice trainee midwife.