Adventdalen by snowmobile Mar 5 2023

This article is part of the series “2023-03: Svalbard”.

Yesterday it looked like sunny weather today so Annika and I looked for an activity today. We found and booked a three-hour tour with snowmobiles organised by Hurtigruten Svalbard. At 10:30 we were fetched by our tour guide by minibus that picks up tourists as us at their accommodations.

At the Hurtigruten Svalbard Expedition centre our group of nine got an introduction about how to drive a snowmobile. While others did it before it was Annika’s and my very first time to drive by ourselves. After that: dressing time!

When it’s -20 °C and you want to drive snowmobile you need to be properly dressed. What we needed by ourselves is woollen underwear, socks, a sweater and thin gloves. What we got from tour operator was bulky winter boots from Kamik, an insulated overall, thick mittens, a woollen balaclava and of course a helmet.

As soon as we were properly clad we fled the building because being dressed for a windchill of -30 °C is not very comfortable inside. TOO WARM! With the helmet and raised visor I look quite silly but safety first!

The author is fully dressed (Photo: Annika Kramer)

Then we went to the parked snowmobiles. These were quite special: they are electric. The range is quite limited but they do not produce as much noise as their more common fuel-powered cousins and more important: no stinking exhaust gases at all!

And then off we went into the large valley Adventdalen.

First impression: the snowmobile seems to follow the track. Steering hardly necessary. If it leaves the track then steering needs a bit of power. Second impression: the visor of the helmet is frosted within seconds and it is quite hard to see.

After ten minutes we took a first break. The guide asked us if everything was ok and then loaded her rifle. We were out of town and we could meet a polar bear. You may not shoot a polar bear, you have either to retreat or use a flare gun to shoo it away, but you need a rifle as a last resort.

Gruve 7 – the last active coal mine on Svalbard

We continued our tour through Adventdalen. We even saw the sun although it was much cloudier than forecasted. It will take three other days until it is visible again in town after more than four months of absence.

We took another stop. The guide spotted some reindeer. The Svalbard reindeer is an own subspecies that looks more compact than the reindeer on Scandinavias mainland. The photo is a cropped image, because we were quite far away to not to disturb the wildlife animals.

Next stop: coffee break. We decided to take the coffee and cake outside because the weather was cold but calm.

After the break we took the short way to the cabin anyhow to have a brief look. Here you can seek shelter if the elements are not as friendly as today. The cabin is private because tour operators are not allowed to use public ones. Understandable since there are a lot of tourist on Svalbard and this year a new peak is expected.

After that visit we headed back to Longyearbyen. This time Annika sat behind me to give another tourist the opportunity to drive alone. I cannot say that I felt completely confident on the snowmobile but at least I was more relaxed than in the beginning.

A nice beginner tour and a good opportunity to drive snowmobile and leave town. What I really liked was that the snowmobiles were electric. Great for shorter tours!

White beaked dolphins Feb 18 2023

This morning I got a facebook message. A colleague of mine had spotted marine mammals on Kvaløya.

I packed the camera and the big telephoto lens and took the car there. I drove around and also took the tunnel to the neighbouring island Ringvassøya but I couldn’t spot any. On the way back I turned into the side road to Kvaløyvågen where I saw a parked car with hazard lights and two people standing, one with binoculars. I asked them if there were any whales around and they affirmed.

And then I saw them too – a pod of at least ten animals. They swam against the current of the sound Kvalsundet and I could spot them for a while. I took some photos and cropped the images, because they were round 300 metres away.

I do not know anything about dolphins. According to my colleague it’s White beaked dolphins.

Thanks a lot for the tipp, M. . It was a special experience to spot so many dolphins from land. Without your message I would have missed them.

And suddenly it’s winter Dec 12 2022

Last Tuesday it got sunny and I paddled kayak. On Wednesday it got cold and the small sound between island Lillskär and mainland was covered with ice.

Wednesday morning in Obbola: ice onthe sea

Although it’s mid-December and despite temperatures between -10 °C and -14 °C there were still whooper swans around. Don’t they migrate south? In the morning they managed to paddle through last night’s fresh and thin sea ice. In the afternoon the swans had left. Perhaps they finally decided to fly south.

On Thursday it snowed. In the afternoon 10 cm of fresh snow had fallen and everything was white and bright, even in the night.

On Friday Annika and I had a day off and visited friends in for a long weekend. They live in Kusfors in the inland, round 180 km north. On the way there and there we found more winter. It was not very cold but it snowed quite a lot. I took some images from the car while Annika was driving.

Yesterday on Sunday we came back to our house in Obbola round 20:00. Our property was covered with 45 of fresh snow. Since it had been sub-zero all the days the snow was pretty fluffy. We had to do quite a bit of snow shovelling – but after taking a photo.

Today it’s Monday and a new working week has begun. I had a lot of meetings today and therefore no time to paddle kayak. Oh yes, the kayaks … where are they? I know they lie beside the wooden terrace. Here they are, well hidden under a thick blanket of snow, right beside the window of the winter garden.

But there are other things to do as well. For example opening the afterwork ski season in Olles Spår near Umeå together with Annika. The snow is still soft and the cross-country skiing trail still slow but the first time of skiing is always special and we are happy and grateful that we live in a place where winter is around us.

Now it’s half past nine in the evening and I’m blogging. Snow is falling and the thermometer shows -9.5 °C, the same temperature as the last hours.

And you? What kind of winter do you like? Or do you prefer other seasons?

From Tromsø to Obbola Nov 21 2022

Friday, 18 November – walking back from work

It’s weekend. Today I stopped working already at 14:15. Sunset was 40 minutes ago and the light is beautiful while I’m walking home.

In Tromsø there’s hardly any snow, but a lot of rime. In the evening there’s polar light, but I only take a smartphone snapshot – tomorrow is a long day.

Saturday, 19 November – taking the bus to Narvik

Today is travel day. Round 16–17 hours it will take me from home to home.

Yes, I have two homes. One “work home” in Tromsø where I work and one “Home home” in Obbola where my wife Annika and I have a house by the Baltic Sea.

The weather is gorgeous and I take many photos through the window of the bus. Therefore some of the motives are blurred. The last one – the large bridge Hålogalandsbron is jittery because it has become dusky.

Saturday, 19 November – taking the train to Umeå

It’s a long ride from Narvik to Umeå. Departure 15:10, arrival 1:40 in the night. But it is a though train. I don’t have anything more to do but being awake on the arrival in Umeå. While I eat my take-away sushi outside of the train station it gets dark and so there is not much to see from the landscape in the train unless it stops.

Bastuträsk station (from the inside of the train)

In the frosty inland where it is quite cold I witness a special phenomenon. The whole forest we are passing is lit in green light. Another aurora? No, it’s cloudy. There are passages where the power lines for the train are coated with rime ice. The layer is so thick, that the current collector of the train looses contact and the electricity jumps over emitting bright green light that illuminates the dark forest.

Green light from the train’s current collector

The train arrives in Umeå in time and Annika already waits at the station. Another half an hour and I’m home home. Bed is waiting!

Sunday, 20 November – winter feelings

Oh, what a blessing it is to be home home. Normally we are supposed to work at the offices of the Norwegian Polar Institute but my boss knows about our long-distance relationship (or is it called long-distance marriage?) and allowed me to do home office until Christmas. Tusen takk! And it is even wintry and a bit sunny and a bit snowy.

From now on I can enjoy the view from my home office.

The terrace and the window of my home office

Monday, 21 November – the first home office day

Enjoying the view from my home office is a pleasure but when all of the sudden the morning sun peeks through the clouds I just have to go outside and make some photos!

And what do I do at lunchtime? This:

Scotland: wetness Oct 31 2022

This article is part of the series “2022-10: Autumn in Scotland”.

You cannot deny, that Scotland can be a pretty wet land. There are however different kinds of wetnesses.

Bathing in the sea

This kind of wetness I love: bathing in the sea. Finally Annika and I managed to find a sandy beach that looked very promising for taking a bath. And it was perfect. No stones, no currents, no sharp-edged shells, no waves as high as a house. The water was warmer than expected and it hardly rained.

Rain and muddy trails

We continued our road trip through the region of Assynt and parked our car by the Stoer Lighthouse. From there we took a circular hike to the Old Man of Stoer, a 60 metre high sea stack. It rained and the trail was soaking wet and partially quite muddy. I managed to keep my rubber boots dry but Annika’s hiking boots were soaking wet after our hike. Her dancing experience helped her to change to dry shoes.

Adventurous roads

As the days before it was Annika that drove the rental cars. You don’t want to fall asleep while driving in Scotland. Beside the single file tracks with its many meeting points sometimes the roads are blocked by sheep. The road sign warning of a 25% steep hill however looked much more dramatic than the road was.

Ardvreck Castle

We have passed Ardvreck Castle several times the last days. Now it was time to stop and have a look.

The lake Loch Assynt was flooded and so was the path to the castle. I like hiking in rubber boots which is a bit overdressed sometimes. In Scotland however I think it’s perfect footwear. Here they helped me to wade to the castle to take some more photos, while Annika waited ashore.

Sea monsters

I almost forgot to tell: At the beach of Clashnessie I observed sea monsters! Carefully I sneaked up to one of them and I managed to take a photo as a proof. There are sea monsters in Scotland!

10 cm high sea monsters.

10 cm high sea monsters buried in the sand.

10 cm high sea monsters buried in the sand looking suspiciously like seaweed.

10 days in Scotland Oct 16 2022

This article is part of the series “2022-10: Autumn in Scotland”.

It has been years, since Annika and I were on holiday outside of Fennoscandia. This October we enjoyed a ten day journey to Scotland from which I just arrived in Tromsø yesterday.

For this article I chose 2 photos for each day. Some more articles will follow later.

6 October – Edinburgh

I landed in the late morning and have the rest of the day strolling through Edinburgh. Blue sky – so it can actual stop raining in Edinburgh ;-). In the evening I wait for Annika who is taking the tram from the airport. Now it is raining. Finally we are together.

7 October – travelling to Ullapool

We have pre-booked train tickets to Inverness where we will spend three hours before taking the coach to Ullapool. Well, in theory. The trains do not go the whole way due to heavy rain flooding. The rest is operated by replacement buses. So much to rain in Scotland. In Inverness we catch the connecting coach to Ullapool and have even time for a pizza.

8 October – hiking in Ullapool

After two travel days we want to be outdoors and look for the hiking trail to the hill Meall Mor after a hand-drawn sketch. We find it. From the top we have a view to the town, the hills and mountains in sun, clouds and rain.

9 October – taking the ferry to Lewis

Gale on the Minch (scale is knots, not m/s!)

After breakfast we take our backpacks through rain and heavy winds to the ferry terminal just to learn that the ferry has been cancelled because of the gusts on the Minch – the straight between Ullapool and the Isle of Lewis. Luckily the afternoon ferry runs according schedule and we arrive in Stornoway at nine o’clock. Scotland premiere: We hire a car. Annika is driving. Left-hand traffic in darkness!

10 October – exploring Lewis

We explore Lewis by car. Great that Annika is brave enough to drive in Scotland (I’m not). Read the article The west coast of Isle of Lewis about this day.

11 October – Peat bogs and Northern Gannets

From Gearrannan Village we take a small way back to Stornoway. In the bogs you can see traces of peat mining. We give back the car, take the ferry back and are watching the elegant aerial manoeuvres of the Northern Gannets. In Ullapool we receive another car that we have hired for the next two days.

12 October – exploring Assynt

We start exploring Assynt, the region north of Ullapool. Read the article Stac Pollaidh about this day.

13 October – taking a bath

Finally – our first bath! At Achmelvich beach. I will write more about this day later …

14 October – travelling to Edinburgh

It is time to give back the rental car and travel back to Edinburgh. First by coach, then by train. This travel confirms my theory that Scottish coaches and trains are designed solely for transport, not for comfort.

15 October – flying back

Short ones, long ones – all holidays comes to their end. Annika takes me to the tram, again it’s me travelling first. What a wonderful holiday. Thank you, Annika!

Grønnlibruna and Petterbolhaugen Sep 25 2022

It’s Sunday. Weather forecast looks very promising and I want to go out hiking. I scroll through my tour book and the net and cannot decide. Finally I just grab my stuff and the book and take my car to Kvaløya where I mostly use to hike. I’ll find something.

While driving I remember the small mountain Grønnlibruna where I’ve been already in November and May. There’s a lot of birch forest in the first half of the hike – perhaps a good place to be in autumn. I drive to the place where the tour starts and park my car.

The sky is covered with clouds and clouds flow through the valleys as well. But the yellow birch leaves of the forest I’m hiking though shine colourfully.

I reach the top of Grønnlibruna. Although it is only 401 metres high I am above the tree line. I continue to a smaller hill in the southwest to enjoy the autumnal colours. Later I’ll learn that it has a name: Petterbolhaugen. I reach the top and just in this moment the sun comes out. It already had started to illuminate small parts of the impressive mountains but now it shines on my face.

The weather become sunnier and sunnier and the views on the mountain panoramas are beautiful.

Many trees have lost already many leaves and even tiny puffs of wind take more leaves with them. Soon the colourful autumnal tinted forests will transform into grey collections of bare trees. Then I will hope for the first snow. But today I collect the colours – for the blog, my memory and my soul.

Autumn colours on the bog Sep 19 2022

Some photos from yesterday’s autumn walk over Langmyra and other bogs on the island Kvaløya.

Stappen in the autumn Sep 17 2022

Reader, meet Stappen. Stappen, meet reader.

Hiking up Stappen is tour 54 in my book “På tur i Tromsø” – On tour in Tromsø – and it is marked blue, which somehow means that it is moderately easy. I tried to hike up Stappen in winter last year but gave up because of the steep terrain paired with snow. Today I gave it another try.

Autumn has been in full swing the last days and most of birch leaves are yellow, while other plants as groundcovers are anything between green, yellow and bright red. Sky today was grey but the colours shone brightly.

After crossing a bog I had started hiking up the mountain from the left side. Or should I say, climb? There was no recognisable path and it was quite steep. Since all rocks were overgrown, terrain was not so easy and I took it slowly and cautiously. I didn’t want to slip or find some hole between the rocks.

As usual the views were gorgeous. The island Tussøya with the pale sea behind, the mountain massif round Skamtinden that rose above the valley while gaining height. or the autumnal coloured marshes with their embedded lakes and small meandering streams.

You can see it on the first photo. The way up stays steep – up to 85% or 40° – until the very top. But finally I crossed the 550 metres level curve and was almost up, because Stappen is only 565.2 metres high. But up does not mean that it was a plateau, it was more a constant up and down and I used my hands a lot when it got steep. Fortunately the ridge was always some metres broad. I’m a bit afraid of heights. And then – after crossing most of the ridge – I reached the top.

Impressive is not the word that you would use to describe this knee-high heap of stones. It was quite obvious, that this mountain is not very popular. It is pretty steep to the sides, so that I could look straight down to the lake Botnvatnet (“the bottom water”). Later I would go round this lake on my way back.

But I was still on the top of the mountain and continued following the ridge that slowly descended. Here you can see two parts of the ridge:

On my way I found a small clearing surrounded by rocks. With the rough mountains around it looked like a secret valley, where dinosaurs still live. Well, they have to be tiny, the clearing was only round ten square metres in size.

This part of Stappen was much less steep, but when I looked back again it looked quite impressive anyhow.

After a while I reached the bogs – still at an altitude of round 330 metres and started to walk back onto the wet and bouncy ground.

Stappen was a nice tour but steeper than expected. At home I read the tour description in the book again. You had to read between the lines: While it was not mentioned, that the ascent is steep, alternative routes were mentioned with the words: “Her er det litt mindre bratt”.

Google translate’s translation: “Here it is a little less steep”.

Olaf’s translation: “Here it is little less steep which is still pretty steep. But other paths – those that you will choose – are much steeper! Anyhow, we marked the tour as blue so you might survive.”

At the end just three pairs of photos of this tour and my tour on 4 December:

First sign of autumn Sep 11 2022

#justaphoto