Safe Return Doubtful

I had a couple of day on the beach at Sandsletta but as the weekend approached it was getting busier with Norwegians in their motorhomes coming from Tromso, just an hour away. Also, I had exhausted the walking possible from that part of the island.

The island has some excellent hiking options, including its high point, Vanntinden, at just over a thousand metres.

I headed on to a wide plateau at about 250 metres with a high point at just over 300, called Masheia. The trails I took seem to have hardly been used recently, and on the ascent and descent, they were overgrown, which meant for a lot of flies. We were out for more than three hours and I cannot recall being pestered by so many flies. To an extent, you get used to it, fortunately, they aren’t the large majority are not biting type, but there are some horse flies concealed in the masses. Some can actually be seen on the photos.

Nonetheless the views from the plateau were fine, and kept me out longer than I had originally planned.

During the afternoon a few locals arrived to use the beach. Amongst them was a family of Sri Lankan descent, one of the guys got chatting and we sat together for an hour or so, over a cup of Yorkshire tea. He was involved in the fishing industry and had a business here, in Tromso, where his family has lived for 37 years. He spends a part of the year in Colombo, and was of course, a cricket fan. His family were now dotted around the world, back at home in Colombo, one of his children at University in Oxford, playing cricket at a good level, and his other children working and living in Arctic Norway.

Norway’s record breaking hot summer continues. Since last weekend the weather has been fine, not particularly hot, but fine, and now the temperature is starting to build, and will do into next week, when 28C is forecast in Tromso. Again, there could be a record broken. It is becoming more common to have this sort of temperature, mid twenties, in the Arctic.

I moved to the south of the island this morning and found an excellent place to stay, provided by the community at the start of several walking paths. There is drinking water, which I needed, and a few picnic benches, to add to the grassy flat surface, elevated from the coast and any noise from the road, which is very quiet anyway.

Just after 11 am, with the temperature hitting 22C, we took a trail that ascended 250 metres quite quickly and then flattened out to two very picturesque lakes. Roja was happy of course.

It’s now a sporty Friday evening with two screens on, soon to be three; the Test Match from Trentbridge, England France in the Under 20s World rugby final, and shortly, Lancashire in a vital T20 game..