Safe Return Doubtful

The van is really lapping up the midnight sun, which will be with us until 30th July. My battery has never been so happy.

It’s been almost cloudless today, until the late afternoon when some wisps have rolled in, but they only obstruct the sun momentarily. Less wind also today, so a lot more flies around, but few mosquitoes.

The Island of Melöy has far more vegetation than those islands I was on earlier this week. I can only guess that it gets warmer and wetter weather, and is more sheltered and therefore gets less stormy conditions that would flatten any trees above 100 metres on those islands to the south.

The hike I selected for this morning was therefore tougher than I had expected. Roja found it no problem of course, and appreciated the various streams, and Storvatnet lake which was our terminus.

I met one guy all day, a guy of 68 who had lived here most of his life, except for the last 10 years when he has been living in Oslo; work took him away, he was a farmer / fisherman, but could not earn enough money to live. He was on vacation, at his family house, which he still owned, and was taking his favourite hike, around the mountain by the rough road, then up to Storvatnet lake, where I met him, then onwards and over the pass at 280 metres, before descending to his house. He carried nothing apart from his shirt, in his hand, as he had just taken it off.

As I’ve already said, the afternoon was much warmer than yesterday, up at 26C for a while, and without much wind, so it was an afternoon to stay out of the sun. There’s a wooden table here that Roja goes underneath, but even with that, he really isn’t used to these temperatures.

I’ve been in a role with reading in the last day or so also, with two books that will most likely meet my ‘best of’ the year list. I’ve reviewed those separately this afternoon.

A Friday evening of Lancashire cricket lies ahead, with a cold beer. Fingers crossed that the rain stays clear of Leicester.