Troll Hunting?

With my ankle getting better and the boots supporting it well, today we were determined to do more hiking than yesterday.

However the first event of the day was quite spectacular. The 'road' between our cabin and car is covered in refrozen old snow and very slippery. Stu had the misfortune to find this out first hand...his legs went up in the air and arms out to the side, resulting in a very loud thunk as he landed on his bum. Owww! Fortunately he only got a few grazes and his pride knocked and we were able to continue on our way.

We headed off to Balsfjord on the next island, the long way round as there is a 100kr (£10) toll on the tunnel and driving around fjords is always picturesque.

On the way out of Tromsø I noticed a building that looked like fallen down dominoes. I'm not quite sure what it was - any ideas?

A little further outside Tromsø we passed somewhere called Sørbotn, quite appropriate after Stu's little accident this morning!

We stopped for lunch overlooking Balsfjord just outside of Nordkjosbotn. The view was magnificent. So magnificent that Stu even managed to snap a picture of me!

If you haven't already noticed, I like reflections and the views over Balsfjord certainly held lots of them! This fjord curves quite abruptly around meaning the water is beautifully still, reflecting the majestic mountains and sky in it like a mirror. Bliss!

By mid-afternoon (and few wrong turns later) we arrived at the bottom of the Fugletind mountain overlooking the fjord. Our map-come-guide suggested that the ascent to the top and back was just 2.5 hours and Stu and I have often been commented as being fast walkers so we thought it would be easy. How wrong we were!

The first hurdle we encountered was that the road was in such a bad and icy condition - imagine a frozen, slippery slushy ice rink in a VW polo! - we had to pull over, in traditional Norwegian style, and parked the car on the road, walking to the start of the hiking trail along the sloppy road.

25mins later we arrived at the gate mentioned in the guide and set off up the 'easy path' - surely this should take less than 2 hours?! We passed lots of footprints (trolls perhaps?), saw an artic fox chasing a little white rabbit and generally sank into the snow (frequently above our ankles), making the walking quite hard going at times.

After a further hour of a most enjoyable hike we decided to turn back; lots of dark grey clouds were closing in (we didn't have our coats with us as it was lovely and warm earlier when the Sun was out!).

About an hour later we made it back to the car and set off back to our cabin. As it was getting late we took the toll route (tunnel) back, saving us an hour of driving. 

The road to the tunnel was quite badly maintained (or there's been a particularly harsh winter); large areas of the road had turned to dust. There were lots of signs of attempted pot hole repairs but the road surface also had signs of being repeatedly scraped by snow ploughs with long grooves running along the length of the road (which had also ripped up any repairs) and most of the road markings were nowhere in sight.

By the time we got back to our cabin, the sky had clouded over and the kp index tonight is low, so once again it's unlikely we'll see the aurora tonight :-(

However, the solar forecast is relatively high for the next three days so fingers crossed the clouds will stay away at least one of these nights!