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.