A late morning, waiting for the weather to improve. Once the rain had stopped and there was a window in the weather I took a walk along the paths in the wooded centre of the island, behind the University.
It was there that I came across a number of young reindeer held in an inclosure. After a while of standing with my side towards the reindeer, as I’d seen horse whisperers do, they came over to see what I was up to. Eventually the two youngest, no more than a year old as they didn’t have any branches on their antlers, came right up to the fence and started sniffing my hand. So, I was communing with cloven beasts.. how devilish! 😉
After about a quarter of an hour I wandered on along the paths, turning back once the battery in my IXUS gave out and the weather started turning gloomy and threatening again.
I got back to base just in time as the rain started again soon afterwards. I went inside, and put the IXUS battery on recharge before deciding to see if I could see anything of the final resting place of the battleship Turpitz on the island of Håkoy. As it happens, there’s nothing there now except a memorial and (invisible from the road) a large crater left by a “Tall Boy” bomb. Still, it was a ride out.
I got back to base again at about half past six, got some food, uploaded the pictures from earlier in the day, chatted to my Dad on Skype for a bit before joining the house mates in the kitchen for the evening, finally going to bed at around half past ten.

Yes, I have now got perminent net access from the room I’m staying in the Tromsø so I can start updating things.

I’ve already created a new Gallery album and have uploaded all of the best images I’ve taken so far. (The northern lights photos are on page 3.)

Oh, and Alec, I seem to remember you visiting these tents during your northern excursion last year:

Am I correct?

The morning was taken up with beaurocracy and trying to figure out how to use automatic petrol pumps when all the instructions are in a foreign language. Still, at the end of it I had a temporary account with the University of Tromsø (UiTø) which allowed me to connect my iBook to the network connection in my room (a net connection at last!), a full tank of diesel in the car and milk in the fridge.
The rest of the morning (which wasn’t good weather-wise) was taken up talking on Bullet and testing out Skype with my Dad, who has been sorely missing a conversation with someone who can talk back normally as my Mum is not able to do this anymore. Oh, and I started uploading the best of the photos I’d taken to my Gallery at home.
So, it was now the afternoon, the weather had cleared up and looking at which direction the weather was coming from I decided to re-trace my steps on Saturday evening and head north towards Hansnes.
What a difference the weather can make to a journey. On Saturday evening it seemed to take forever, I couldn’t see anything and the rain was pouring down. Now, with the sun shining it didn’t seem to take long at all to get to the point I turned around. A couple of miles later I turned left and up, up, up at Hessfjord and drove along the road to Mikkelvik.
The scenery is spectacular up there, with lakes, inlets, mountains etc. It was definitely a good move to take that road. The light in the afternoon, playing on the autumnal golden leaves was beautiful and made it a photographer’s dream, especially as the sun sank lower.
Returning, I drove back into the cloud and by the time I’d got back to Tromsø the roads were wet again. My house mate informed me that it had been raining in the town since about 4pm.. about the time I was getting the best photos in the sunlight up north, so I’d definitely made the right choice of location for the afternoon.
The evening was spent on a combination of uploading the rest of the photos and talking to Alec and my Dad on Skype.

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.

Long post, in which I rant about supermarkets and see reindeer.

I took the trekking party to the end of the road in Tromsdalen in two groups. This took rather longer than I had anticipated and hence made me late for a meeting with Zhenya, one of the two people we are liasing with, so that she could show me where to return the room keys to and where to register so as to get a temporary UiTø username for net access via my iBook.
I managed to get all the red tape out of the way by midday (though I will have to collect my user details on Monday) so came back to base for lunch.
This afternoon, as the brighter weather looked as though it was to the south west (i.e. the Atlantic coast), I decided to have the round-tour of the island originally planned as a minibus trip before we found out the cost of hiring a minibus.
In total, including lots of stops to take photographs and a long stay at Sommarøy, it took about four hours, mostly due to the very low speed limits that Norwegian roads have. The maximum speed is 50mph with much of the road under a 40mph restriction or far less for long stretches.
The weather was indeed far better on the coast with very broken cloud which became blue sky with clouds as time went by. By the time I’d got back to base Tromso had got the blue sky (and clouds) as well but it obviously hadn’t had for long as the roads were still wet. It’s flippin’ nippy out where-ever I was though. It was 10C with a biting south westerly wind. Next time I’m taking my wooly hat with me if I’m going to be walking outside the car!
This evening’s been quiet. Too quiet really. I think the two women who are staying here whilst they do a midwifery course have both gone back home for the weekend and the rest of the group are now spending their first night in the DNT huts. I imagine that they got pretty well soaked this morning and were glad to see the sun later in the day, even if it didn’t provide much in the way of warmth. I do hope that the hut is not full already and that they have all managed to cram themselves inside to get out of that wind and keep warm.
I’m pretty bored as there’s not much viewable on the telly except “The Simpsons” and an old episode of “Charmed” as I got dinner. The quality of the american imported shows has steadily decreased as the evening has worn on. I can’t wait until Monday when I get a net connection again. At least there will be one more diversion to be had.

Went into town with Nigel and Linda. (Scott and Isabelle just beat us to being the first out today.) We did final bits of shopping for the trip before catching the bus for the Tromso University Museum, where we had lunch.
I had to leave before the others as I had to go and collect my hire car.
In the end, I got to the Europcar place about half an hour before my appointment. However, it seems that I was the only person collecting a car today (the manager/mechanic had to open the office for me and there was only one folder on the desk) and so that was no problem at all.
The actual driving on the right is fine, it’s just the roundabouts and turning left which are rather weird and unnatural at the moment. I’m sure that I’ll get used to it.
This evening we went out for our final night out together as another two of the party were flying home via a 2 day stop-over in Oslo. Much to everyone’s delight we didn’t go to Peppe’s Pizza but instead a rather more traditional establishment. Nice food.
The cost of eating out is probably about 1.5 times that at home, though Peppe’s Pizza is as cheap or cheaper if you take into consideration the size of the portions.
It was a relatively early evening to bed.

The cold was a lot better so the group of us, the normal forward party of Isabelle, Linda, Nigel and myself, went into town to the Polar Museum. The rest of the group followed on somewhat later after managing to raise themselves out of their beds.
After the museum we popped over the bridge and searched for the camp site the trekking group will be using on their last night. We found it and there will be no problem with getting and plots according to the managers.
In the evening we all went out and had another pizza at Peppe’s Pizza. This has been a recurring venue for our group.

I’ll give a more detailed summary of the whole trip when I get back but so far I’ve been on an 8 hour evening bus and cruise ship round trip, seen and photographed the northern lights, got lost on Tromsbuss, been up a cable car and walked to the top of the highest point on Tromso Island.

The low lights have all been to do with the cold I picked up. It’s meant that I’m not currently walking over some mountains, which is a blessing in disguise as it’s tipping it down with rain.

More later…

I spent most of the day in my room with a very nasty cold. I did manage to go out in the morning to the city centre and sat in the cafe of the Radisson Hotel chatting on Bullet and looking at the web via WiFi. The weather was foul, wet and horrid.
The rest of the group went off for a hike as a warm up for the main hike later in the week. Apparently, up the top of the hill the rain wasn’t so bad.
In the evening I ran a quick slideshow of all the photos taken so far as Leila Battison was flying out the next morning.