Safe Return Doubtful

Kvaløya is promoted as being all of Norway in one place. The southern side is where most tourists head, as it’s on route to Senja. I remember cycling through Ona. Few very wet days in August 2016. This time I wanted to get to the strange shaped peninsula in the north. Few tourists visit here, but for Tromsonians it’s just half an hour out of town. Indeed, that’s one of the great things about living in Tromso, it has access to wonderful mountains on all sides, and all less than an hour away. 

Grøtfjord had been my first port of call, as I wrote about in the last post, but after the weekend got busier with some fine weather, I moved out to the mountains to the west of the peninsula, mainly because they were accessible; the others are limited to experienced and skilled mountaineers. 

I parked up at the top of a pass at 150 metres asl, and from there were two fairly short hikes, possible for Rua at his age, as well as me, at my age, that also gave spectacular views. 

On Monday we headed up the two peaks of Brosmortinden. At the top I got chatting with four young French hikers, two were about to jump off with a paraglider. As ever in such meetings, the reason for attention is Rua. The two who didn’t jump, walked down with me. They were from Brittany, where two years ago I had walked some sections of the Custom’s Officer Trail along the coast, which they lived very close to. 

The meeting proved very useful, as today, I met them again in a peak in the opposite direction, they were on a clockwise circuit, I was on an anticlockwise. I’d been out an hour, and enable me to be out another hour, they took Rua with them. 

We had the first sunset in the Tromso region since 14 May yesterday. Today is a special day as well in that regard; there are two sunsets in one day, on at 00:07 and the other at 23:54. Here, will move from 24 hours daylight to 12 hours between 27 July and 21 September, within 55 days. Further north these are more acute, until the North Pole, where the sun rises and sets only once a year, creating a continuous six-month period of daylight followed by six months of darkness. The sun sets around the autumn equinox, taking multiple days to slide completely below the horizon. Instead of rising and setting daily, the sun moves in a wide, low circle around the sky. 

After two sunny and warm days here (23C high), rain has just moved in and will stay throughout the night. I will move off Kvaløya tomorrow, though stay in the Tromso region for another few days.