Safe Return Doubtful

The temperature dropped 19 degrees from the morning I hiked Kjølen mountain to the following day. I took advantage of a lapse in the heavy rain to let Roja have some exercise, though I was less enthusiastic myself. This is one of the advantages of having a dog. I’m sure I wouldn’t have gone out in these conditions, enveloped in cloud, 8C, and wet, but I had no choice. Dogs don’t understand inclement weather. I had read my book for far longer than usual, and it was time to make some sort of grander movement. Even then, we were only out for 40 minutes.

I then drove into Tromso city to fill up with LPG for cooking. As on the last few occasions, it took 1.6 litres, and cost about 1 and a half euros to fill. The last time I filled up was in Fauske 37 days ago, so it does seem that it is good value.

This LPG facility is an automated one. They are so much easier to use than others in Europe. There is only one further north, in Alta, and one which I have tried to use before, but was out of order, waiting for a part. It seems it is functioning currently though. Finland has banned LPG as fuel, and therefore has no facilities for fill up except one in Helsinki. There was nowhere on Shetland last summer either, but I managed for 8 weeks. I am confident that I will have enough to get to Helsinki.. we shall see.

Also in Tromso on a wet morning, I took the opportunity of a sauna and lengthy shower. For the last eight weeks it’s been an occasional rationed campsite shower, or more frequent, my own outdoor shower, for which I need to ration the time because of the amount of water I carry.

Midway through the afternoon I drove north, heading for a well-visited hike that I wanted to do the following day, the idea being to stay overnight at the Trailhead carpark.

This carpark though is very popular, and has a modern, Western Europe, camera equipped, charge facility, charging about the same as a car park in a popular tourist destination in the UK, but with an overnight option, at 250 kroner. Unfortunately for the Tromso municipality, but fortunate for me, it was not working. It made it quite a pleasant night, the idea that it was free, and that most motorhomes had gone elsewhere and packed out the nearby parking spots as they didn’t want to pay. By now the rain had gone, but the cloud was still low. Nonetheless a pleasant evening watching Lancashire cricket from Sedbergh and the Olympic Sevens from Paris.

This morning we hiked the 12 kilometres round trip to Blåisvatnet, translated as the Blue Lake. This is the south side of a group of mountains known as the Lyngen Alps, as they are on Lyngen Fjord. They run north-south for 90 kilometres, to the border with Sweden and contain about 140 glaciers. Blåisvatnet is a glacial lake, one of six with such crystal clear turquoise water, but by some way the most accessible to hikers. The mountains are known as the Alps due to their Alpine character, and are popular with extreme skiers. The highest summit is the 1833 metre Jiehkkevárri. A British climber, Williams Slingsby, a Yorkshireman, was the first to climb most of the peaks, in the 1870s and 80s. He is known as the father of Norwegian mountaineering.

The approach to the lake is straightforward, across a wide valley of erratic rock deposited by the glaciers over many years. A good test for my hip, as this was the sort of terrain I used to find most difficult. Today it was no problem. At the lake, the cloud had begun to lift, and we were presented with that atmospheric view of wisps of cloud lifting with the Alps behind.

In the afternoon I drove on for an hour, and took another ferry, this time across two fjords to Olderdalen. I am now heading for the larger and hopefully wild islands off the far north west coast. I needed to join Norway’s main arterial road, the E6, for a while, with much of its traffic that if the tourist variety heading to and from Alta and North Cape. There are less visitors than below Tromso, but it is as busy as it gets in the last weeks of summer. Once off the road it is a different world. Learning from an experience a few days ago, instead of taking a four kilometre tunnel I took the old road, the one that pretty much only cyclists and hikers use, that climbs to a 401 metre pass, and actually has quite a good surface. I’m stopped almost at the top. There are two other vans up here, most interestingly, a Polish guy with a two month old 4 wheel drive elevated Sprinter. We chatted for a while, and I mentioned that it might be worth 150,000 euros… ‘at least’, he said..

It was now a fine evening, and Roja and I took an hour out around our camp taking in the views before tea.

The plan for the last few weeks in Norway..