Norway 3rd September aka Sunday again

We left Mefjord Brygge and headed for the ferry to take us back to the mainland. On the way here, we went across a bridge so this was a different route for some new scenery. There was already a long queue for the ferry when we arrived at the terminal despite being more than 30 minutes early. The journey was short and sweet (though I took a pill so I wasn't at risk of getting ill anyway) and on the other side, we found some more amazing places to explore including a small island linked to the mainland with a bridge.

We got to Tromso airport really early for the flight but not so early we regretted it. We ate some lunch and passed time by swapping photos via a usb drive. Many of the photos I am posting here come from Joe and Lisa. Which is pretty obvious when you consider how many of the photos have me in them...

On the flight from Tromso to Oslo, I had some interesting travel companions. I was on the aisle seat and the wife was at the window and the husband between us. He told me that they were coming in from Svalbad where he had been working in his capacity as an electrical engineer specialising in high redundancy/reliability systems at the Svalbard Satellite Station. He showed me photos of the place, some that had been taken by a colleague of his including one of a polar bear. It looked like a truly alien place with odd rituals (hanging seals? keeping dogs in rows upon rows of cages?). I was fascinated.

They told me that they had both worked on Oslo airport and in fact it was where they met. Astounding. I think she must have been an architect though she said that she "designed" some features of the airport so it wasn't totally clear to me. But I was impressed! 

It was her that told me to get the local train from the airport to Oslo central.

I said my farewells to the couple and got off the plane. Unexpectedly, I saw Joe. He and Lisa were heading onto Heathrow so I didn't think I would see them as they would be going for a flight transfer rather than going to arrivals. But he had lost his passport. There wasn't a route back to the plane as there was a one-way escalator involved. But I understand that eventually Joe and Lisa found some staff member who searched the plane for them and retrieved his passport.

I headed into Oslo... and regretted getting the local train. Yes, half the price but it was crowded.

At Oslo, I met up with Erik. We met in the lobby of my hotel which was essentially at the station. It was great to see him. It felt like many years but actually was only a year or two. He took me out to watch the sun set from the roof of the opera house.

It was a fun evening. He pointed out to me the proximity to the woods and how public transport could be used not only to go there but also to go out amongst nearby islands. He told me that there were boats in the harbour that had saunas in them and could be rented and taken out too. We ate in a hipster food court place. I had tonkatsu and it was fatty and delicious and much better than any I have had outside of Japan. We ate outside. It was 16 degrees and pleasant (when I returned to the US, it was still 30 degrees even at 10pm). We had a couple of drinks (which somehow he paid for by convincing bar staff to take a personal transfer via "vipps") and then he took me home on a tram. 

It was a lovely way to end the trip. And it was a lovely trip. The company was brilliant throughout and the country just worked. Everything was modern and well designed and simply functional. The food was such high quality even when it was simple. I mentioned the wonderful bread but also the wonderful water. Better than any bottled mineral water and straight from the tap. And of course the landscape. Even on days without views, I found something to enjoy. Mainly the company I was with but also the mosses, the lichens, the berries and the mushrooms.

I missed Norway as soon as I left it. I am Norwegian Blue.

Norway 2nd September aka Saturday

By this time, I had grown rather fond of Mefjord Brygge. The view across the fjord included Segla and Hesten and though it wasn't west facing, sunsets were still enjoyable there. The accommodation was similar to Hamn i Senja though a little more basic in execution. My room at Mefjord was up in the eaves of the building and I would bump my head on the ceiling every time I put my trousers on. Still, there was a kitchen, which we used for dinner on Friday night, and a sofa to crash on.

Given how amazing Friday was, and in fact the days prior to that, I didn't really care about Saturday. Honestly I was a little sore from the daily hikes not in body so much as in, er... non-existent soul. So when it looked like an even cloudier day, I was not so fussed. No peak looked to be in the sun that day and it was not clear what to do with our time. But we opted to push off decision making for a while by going to a little fishing village that was meant to be cute (it was actually pretty uninspiring though I bought an excellent chocolate croissant from there).

Alas it didn't help and the clouds were still low and thick. We headed off on a hike anyway in a location where there were multiple options. I wanted to climb Grytetippen ("tipa topp" as the hiking signs would say) but almost immediately when climbing to Daven, a lower mountain, well, hill-top, we lost the trail markers in the fog. I grew nervous about getting lost and asked that we abandon the attempt. So we switched to climb Barden. But the way was hard across boulders and we eventually came to a point where we honestly couldn't see the way. A couple of people with long legs and an alien attractiveness bounded up the lack-of-trail and I still couldn't tell where they had gone. 

Given that the clouds were so thick, we gave up on that trail too.

On the way down, there was a sudden break in clouds and I saw the Gytetippen/Keipen ridge. It was a hallejujah moment. I asked that we go back up and wait again for another cloud break (this one was brief) but Lisa wanted to return to the car (she had recently had an injury and was taking things more gentle than me and Joe but still did a lot even so). I hesitated a bit but the selfish brat in me took over and I left Lisa and Joe and went back up to Daven. I waited there and waited... no break occurred.

I was texting with Joe and he said he had got Lisa to the car and was heading back up to me. I was feeling on the verge of giving up but kept up hope. Once Joe reached me, though we were still shrouded in fog, it did seem like there was a break on the horizon...

It broke. Not suddenly but in a sneaky way where the landscape beyond unobtrusively sidled into view. "What me? I was here all along," it said. We could see down the fjord to Fjordgard where we started the trail up Hesten the previous day and we could see the "sail of Senja" Segla itself. We realised that the peak of Daven was in fact just a couple of minutes away and bounded there and took a million photos to make up for the day in fog.

Just as we were about to leave, a stoat sprang into our company. It really did spring. It was so cute and loved to pose as long as you were quick to get the shot before it boinged into another cute position. Joe declared it to be a lemming and as I said I wasn't 100% sure it was a stoat (but pretty sure... I speculated that it was a different kind of weasel possible), a lemming it became to Joe. When we eventually rejoined Lisa, he told her he saw a lemming. I showed her a photo. "Er... that's not a lemming," she said. "No, it's a stoat," I said, quite firmly.

It was a good end to the day. We took lots of photos of Segla on the way back as the clouds totally lifted. We perhaps should have pushed our luck up Barden or Grytetippen but it didn't really matter. The hiking had made me happy enough just through the exertion and being in nature. In fact, I had had more fun that day taking photos of mushrooms than of the views even when they did emerge. (I was "away with the mushrooms" that day and all Joe had to do was observe that there was a mushroom and I was off bonding with it). I had overcome the lack of interest in hiking I had had that morning. But still, wasn't all that broken hearted that that was our last day on Segla.

Norway 1st September aka Friday

 This day was simply the best. 

After a very fog-bound Thursday, we were really concerned that Friday would be much of the same. The mountains on the other side of the fjord were hidden in clouds and they were meant to be where we were hiking. But I had some optimism that we might be able to get above the low lying clouds after consulting with the online weather reports of there being sun on the peak of Segla.

So we started off from Fjordgard and walked up and up. Initially under cloud and then in it. A couple that were coming down gave us hope that it was clear at the top. Their beaming faces either indicated that it was a stupendous view or that they were gleeful at the massive trick they were playing on us.

It was fortunately the former.

I went on a bit ahead of Joe and Lisa as I was impatient for success. And so was the first to see Segla. It was a dark looming shape in the mist. I shrieked with joy, apparently giving Lisa some needed enthusiasm to continue up.

When the clouds truly broke it was like being in heaven only with far fewer cherubs playing harps and all in all a lot nicer than I think I have ever seen heaven depicted.

The last segment of the trail up Hesten (which is the mountain we were on, viewing the other mountain of Segla) was a steep scramble. Lisa elected not to take it and within a couple of minutes of attempting it, I was regretting the decision. I decided to turn around as it was just a ridiculous climb up a near vertical slope without an obvious trail. But then a couple (who turned out to be from CA) came down and I realised that I was way off the trail. They pointed out the route I was meant to be taking (which I swear didn't look like a route at all) and once I was on it, it seemed feasible again. 

And so I climbed to the top, with Joe ahead and seemingly gleeful at my struggles or at least that is how I read the fact that he took a series of photos of my efforts.

I was shaky at the top. Joe was scampering out onto ledges without any concern but I was hugging the rocks as if they could stabilise me though I am not sure why I thought that gravity could suddenly tilt and plummet me to my death. Phobias to do with heights are just as crazy as phobias to do with spiders. 

Just as I felt that I was growing accustomed to it, it looked like clouds were coming in thicker so we went back down. In retrospect, the clouds were just coming in and out all the time and if anything the trend was towards them lightening and I wish we had spent longer there. But Lisa was down below waiting for us and so down we went. 

It was sunny by the time we were at the bottom so we decided to head back to the viewpoints we missed on the foggy Thursday. We saw some great views but nothing could compete with Segla in the clouds.

Norway August 31st aka Thursday

 We moved accommodations and to begin with, this felt like a let-down. I really loved Hamn i Senja. The fjord contained all these little islands in it and when the sun was out, the water looked like a tropical turquoise. I felt that the next fjord wouldn't live up to this. And indeed, it looked a bit like it wouldn't at first but I grew fond of Mefjord after a while.

It was a foggy day. The fog came in early on and meant that the drive was featureless. We tried to stop off at places to walk but couldn't find trails. In the end we gave up and got to Mefjord Brygge hideously early and weren't able to check in. But they did point out local trails to us that weren't thick in fog and so we did them.

To begin with, we climbed a hill that overlooked the town and then we went onto a trail so new that the map at the start didn't reflect how it was currently laid out (later on in the trail we found another posted map that was accurate). These trails had been created by locals and they had an air of whimsy about them with cute little houses.

One house included within it tales of the hulder which were weirdly Biblical saying that the hulder were a race born from Eve who was a terrible mother who quite simply couldn't keep track of her naughtier children and decided to just disown them.

The trail was a lot of fun and went up and down hillocks. I learnt that Lisa is just as phobic of spiders as Joe on this trip, maybe more so as I suspect Joe is just making it up, as she screamed and then cried repeatedly "get it off me get it of me" when she walked into a spider's web. Due to this one spider, and the presence of lots of boards across boggy areas, the trail was deemed to be going through Spider Swamp.

That night, we ate at Mefjord Brygge which was still pretty good if not as stellar as Hamn i Senja. Maybe I went a little far that evening with arguing that eating whale meat (which was on the menu but I did not choose it opting for a cow derived steak instead) was not any less ethical than eating cow and might even be better as there was significantly less impact on the climate. It did not go over well that I dismissed arguments that cattle owed their mere existence to us. I think there was another debate too with regards human beings apparently having souls, something I was surprised to hear from someone that otherwise appeared to be non religious.

Norway August 30th aka Wednesday

Wednesday was wonderful. I mean, all days were great but this was the first day where I was gobsmacked by beauty. It started with a view point that was like a little diving board sticking out into the fjord. After that, we engaged in a hike that blew me away.

The start of the Husfjellet hike from Skaland (love the name) was very easy with a wide trail that got a little steeper at one point but then broke above the tree-line into delightfully rolling hills. I scampered up in front of Joe and Lisa for much of the way as I was drawn to the top of each new rise. At one point, we needed to go down a little into a boggy area where some kind folk had put down pallets to be walked upon... though one pallet behaved a lot more like a seesaw and splatted me with mud when I stepped onto it.

When we got up high... Oh boy. Clouds had come in and made visibility something to not take for granted but what peaked through was astounding.

Lisa and I didn't make it quite to the top as the top looked to be in thick cloud and we were happy where we were. Joe went on and reported thick clouds were indeed the case but I am pretty sure he was just saying that to save our feelings as he later shared glorious photos with us.

 

Norway August 29th aka Tuesday

 First full day in Senja! Breakfast was great. There was a discussion on the first night in Tromso about meeting up and going to breakfast together but I was confused as to how those logistics would work and was glad to see that in the end, we just met up at breakfast allowing people to eat whenever they wanted. I was always the last out. Every morning, I slept soundly and needed the alarm to wake me up. It was a week of really brilliant sleep.

The hike for the day was right by Hamn i Senja, no car required. Lisa selected it as a hike to gauge fitness. It was pretty tough but not the worst on the list. 

We didn't make it to the top.

To be fair to us, this wasn't because we were incapable of it so much as the rain was coming in and making it undesirable. 

The hike started well with a steady but reasonable climb. The plants on display were fascinating to me and this became a theme for each hike. Universally, there would be a springy moss and loam ("ask me about loam") with a high degree of humus. Plenty of red lingonberries at every location. Some places would additionally have blueberries. I snacked on both but the lingonberries were pretty flavourless. We found plenty of mushrooms, some huge and some tiny and some looking very much like the homes to pixies. I didn't snack on the mushrooms (who would want to enrage the pixies?).

At points, the trail became a scramble across rocks. We gave up the journey when the trail was steep up muddy paths that were only getting more slippery as the clouds came in. I tried to go a little further but discovered that though up was not an issue, down to reach where Joe and Lisa were waiting was getting tricksy. And when I rejoined, I did find Joe covered in chocolatey looking mud all down his trousers from a little mis-step. We decided that continuing up would just be an invitation to get more dirty and unlikely to reward us with views given the weather. As we went down, the clouds got thicker and the rain was terrifically hard by the time we were back in Hamn i Senja.

We camped out in the accommodation until the rain cleared and then took a short trip to a nearby lighthouse. The lighthouses on Senja were so cute- only a little taller than a person. The trail out was described in a google review that I consulted as 10 minutes from the road. Um, yes maybe... But also with hard rocks to get over and in one place, you needed to walk on the rungs of a ladder that crossed a gap. There was at least a good railing. But this was not the stroll we expected. Still, I got to my lighthouse.

That evening, Lisa cooked pasta and made a salad. It was really good and I ate the leftovers the next day. It was a common bit of tension throughout the break that I didn't like food waste but as far as tension goes, not a major one. 

Norway August 28th aka Monday

The hotel provided an okay breakfast where the main joy was the great bread. Great bread will be present at every single breakfast. I miss the bread. We went back to the airport to get a car and it was a beast. A big black BMW SUV hybrid. Full of all the bells and whistles. It drove pretty well and with the sensors and cameras for reversing, the size wasn't a huge issue and once loaded with our suitcases, it was nearly completely full. Once loaded with shopping from a supermarket it was absolutely full.

The drive was very easy. I took us until the supermarket when my contacts started to get too smeared to see through safely and Joe took over. On the way, we drove along fjords. They were pretty. When we went a little inland, I managed to get the line "I find myself pining for the fjords" out before anyone else which I think deserved a gold medal. 

But the weather was also a little bleak. When we arrived at Hamn i Senja, we checked in quickly and then headed out on our first excursion on the island. At the first view point, we stopped and the clouds broke letting a rainbow through, signifying the departure of the gloom and the start of a sunny afternoon.

We went onto a few more viewpoints and stopped at a little fishing village. We found sea urchins and jellyfish in the waters of the fjord there. It was more rich with marine life than the marine preserve I kept visiting just north of Half Moon Bay and never found a single bit of life. We ended up taking a short hike up a hill for better views. Had we planned a bit better, we might have left us some time to make the hike longer but we weren't expecting to do that walk and finding the trail was a happy surprise. I felt a little under appreciated when making a joke when Joe set a cairn to be our destination at which we would turn around ("You cairn do it," I said to Lisa) and no one laughed. By the end of the trip, they had warmed to my humour some more or at least that is what I tell myself.

Dinner that evening was at the accommodation restaurant (in the white building in the first photo posted in this entry). Hamn i Senya was a little on the swanky side and by far offered us the best meal of the trip. Well, me anyway- Lisa chose a good stew but for some reason Joe opted for a hunk of cauliflower. I went for reindeer steak which came with delicious accompaniments including lingonberries.

Dinner concluded exactly in time for sunset. Being late August, the sunset and sunrise times weren't so extreme though it didn't get pitch black until gone 11pm. Our little rental unit was right at the end of the island and gave us access to wonderful views to the west.

The accommodations there comprised little rental units with a strange but functional approach of having four bedrooms connected to a living room/kitchen and locking off the unpaid-for rooms. So Joe and Lisa had one room and I had another and we had shared space for us to crash. This was really nice, making things a lot more civilised than us all just disappearing to separate rooms, and I was really glad for the ability to make tea. We never really found the source of heat to the rooms though there was a water boiler that gave off quite a bit of warmth. But we all needed to open windows to get it cool enough to sleep at night. Welcome to the arctic circle... warmer than expected.

Norway August 27th aka Sunday

Breakfast was amazing. I was expecting something good as this was a factor in my hotel choice. I was to learn though that everywhere served good breakfasts. Still, this one was wonderful with an expansive buffet that I didn't even see the full extent of. I feasted on fresh fruit and a couple of rounds of something similar to scotch pancakes... but not. Plus a pot of tea. I had my own teabags and was served by someone who looked to be from India (and I think had an accent that would also indicate that) so I felt like there ought to be a joke about colonisation possible. I failed to think of one on the spot but gave an apologetic smile and expressed my thanks when she brought the pot of hot water over.

The trip to the airport went smoothly. On the (expensive) train to the airport, there was a flat screen that looped through adverts, news and general train information. I noted amusement that one advert featured a pre-teen flossing and also noted how bilingual everything was. Adverts clearly aimed at locals would be a true mix of Norwegian and English. I observed later too when I met up with Erik that he switched easily in discussion with e.g. bar staff (obviously talking more in Norwegian when not wanting me to understand).

I met up with Joe and Lisa at the gate for the flight to Tromso. Flight got in around 1pm and we headed to the town center in a taxi. It went through a tunnel that was expansive enough to include a roundabout. This prompted much glee (and I was to drive through this myself the next day when we went to Senja). The hotel allowed us to drop off bags and then we headed across a bridge to our first actual piece of tourism. It was strange that we'd been travelling for two days and weren't yet at the final destination.

The tourist spot was a church. It was small and unspecial but an amuse bouche. Then we headed up a cable car to Storsteinen mountain ledge where there were great views. It's hard in retrospect to talk excitedly about this and indeed at the time I was not exactly astounded but it was certainly nice. The thing I most remember though is scrambling around the mountain top with Joe talking about science and tech and generally enjoying the exercise of conversation.

We rounded off the day with a simple meal at the hotel which was part of the cost of the room. I found the food simple but tasty and pretty much hitting the mark of what I wanted especially when topped with a delicious chocolate fondant with raspberry sorbet. 

Norway 25th - 26th August

I am writing this as there wasn't a pad and it bothers me to let things go unannotated with my running commentary on things.

I was not enamoured with the idea of going to Norway which was not on my radar of places to visit at all. Skit raised it in 2019 as an option for 2020 and I was not all that interested. A lack of historical awe, cultural diversity and simply unexotic, I thought. But I was missing a lot in my assessment. I was missing the good health of the place. The existence of a region that can just inspire happiness through natural beauty and careful integration of human life.

2020 wasn't in the end the year for travelling abroad and so Norway didn't happen. Until 2023 when Lisa asked if I wanted to join her and Joe on a trip to the Norwegian island of Senja, latitude 69 degrees (dude) within the Arctic circle. It was good timing for me and the idea of meeting with friends I hadn't seen for a while was ideal- I was tiring a little of travelling by myself. But I still didn't get too excited over the location.

The flight out was complicated. Three legs with an overnight in Oslo between legs two and three. The plan was to change at Heathrow and get to Oslo early evening so there would be time to enjoy the city and have a nice meal before staying at a fairly swanky hotel. The first leg was okay, leaving from Baltimore, but Baltimore airport itself was a disappointment. I note it here as the memory of this was with me throughout the trip as I had been warned that food in Norway wasn't good... and I am certain that those that say that have not experienced typical US food. The airport offered fried chicken and burgers. And that was it. In general, I feel rather annoyed at any American that criticises food abroad- this is most certainly the country with the worst food that I have experienced. Sure, I've been in Japanese restaurants where the number of eyes staring at me makes me unable to eat a thing but that doesn't make it as bad as the grease of the US fast and convenient food industry. 

I never found an instance of bad food in Norway. Indeed, every single thing I ate exceeded quality of US food.

The flight was pretty bad (my trial of BA indicated that it was Not Great) and when I landed at Heathrow, I was in for a bad surprise. To my parents, I described the situation as "reminiscent of getting out of Berlin".

We landed at Terminal 3 even though the plane was meant to be at Terminal 5. So they bussed everyone over to Terminal 5. But my flight to Oslo left from Terminal 3. So I got back on the bus and did the reverse journey. Got to security at T3 and the security guy said that my boarding pass flagged an error. I went back to a service desk which had a long queue and learnt that my flight was cancelled... Eventually I got to the front of the queue and got rebooked onto a later flight but they only gave me a receipt and couldn't issue a boarding pass. I then had to hop on a bus to Terminal 2 and go through security at Terminal 2.... without a boarding pass. The woman stared at my receipt for a long time before letting me through. I wonder what would have happened if I had not had a British passport as I would doubt that letting a foreign national into the terminal without a boarding pass could have worked.

I killed time at T2 with a nice lunch of bangers and mash and fueled myself with a coffee from Pret. Eventually, when I was at my perkiest, Joe and Lisa arrived from CA and escorted me to the United lounge where we could hang out before the flight onwards. It was quite amusing that my rebooked flight was the same as theirs but I was slightly disappointed that my evening in Oslo had been lost.

It was nice to see them again and I felt that chat and banter flowed well. 

Arriving at Oslo was simple but it was with a touch of sadness as I was refused entry to the EU arrivals line. Sigh, Brexit. 

I stayed in Oslo that night and left Joe and Lisa at the airport hotel. Hopping down to Oslo's central station was simple with their trains. I later learnt through seat companions on my return leg to Oslo that there were cheaper trains that took just as long and only tourists were fooled into the expensive ones. But I was quite happy to have it all simply laid out for me without complication.

I was amused to see that there was a Boots at Oslo central. 

I walked ten minutes in the rain in Oslo and got to my hotel around 10pm like a drowned rat. I noted that there was a uniform approach to dress in Oslo for cagoules. Didn't keep me all that dry to be honest but I joined their fashion with an orange cagoule I bought specifically for this trip (and the choice of orange paid off in photos as much as I hoped it would).

Hotel was lovely. Except with a duvet on the bed rather than a sheet and a room temperature that really meant it was not appropriate. Still, I managed to sleep fairly well and woke with my alarm the next morning.