Our location on the fjord shoreline last night was beautiful but as the wind increased it got cold. Turn Basil’s heating on for two hours type cold! The increasing wind ensured we were all rocked to sleep in our beds!
Today was another driving day. In other parts of Europe a driving day can be quite monotonous and boring, but not in Norway. As we moved further south the fjords got more dramatic as the mountains got higher. Some of the peaks today were over 1800 metres (6,000 feet) and although the cloud was still masking the tops, we could see through gaps that the peaks they were snow covered.
At one point we drove many miles along a fjord which was a consistent turquoise colour. The sun wasn’t out but it was still a clear crystal turquoise. The other fjords have patches of lovely blue colours, but we could not figure out why this fjord has such a consistent iridescent colour.
As I mentioned yesterday, we planned to take two of Norway’s numerous ferries today. There are some ferries which take you on big jumps down the coastline, which are very expensive with a big motorhome and there are many more which just ply their trade across fjords to reduce the amount of time and mileage it would otherwise take to go to the head of that fjord and back down the other side.
Ferry approaching the dock
The cost of the ferries is determined by the length of your vehicle. Anything under 6 metres is treated as a car and is inexpensive. Basil fits into the 7 to 8 metre category and that is about treble the price of a car. Our first ferry, from Olderdalen to Lyngseidet took about 30 minutes and the second from Svensby to Breivikeidet twenty minutes and the combined cost was 450 NOK (€48).
Basil on board a ferry
The smaller ferries, such as the ones we took today, have an open car deck which will take maybe 40 cars, with a bridge and passenger area which spans, like an arch, over the car deck. You can buy your tickets on board, or online, or as we have found if you have the Troms App, you can buy them tickets for ferries in the Tromso area on your smart phone and get a 30% discount!! What we didn’t know, until we bought our fist tickets this way, is that tickets bought on the App have only a 4 hour life span before they expire! We got off our second ferry with just 10 minutes to spare! Tomorrow we take a much longer ferry to Senja island so the whole experience may be different.
We passed through the biggest city in Northern Norway today, Tromso. Or should I say under it. We had no intention of spending time in Tromso. We couldn’t see anywhere to park a motorhome, the dogs are not a good fit with big cities and Lonely Planet’s description of Tromso did not inspire me. So we set course for our night stop, which is near tomorrow’s ferry, but that meant going through Tromso at 5pm. I was fearing gridlock. I need not have worried. Tromso is build on a hill and the city has build a road network under the city. We entered a tunnel and then had to navigate a number of roundabouts underground! The result was that we sailed through Tromso.
Basil’s free overnight location at Sommaroy
We have finished the day on a free camping area just outside the village of Sommaroy (69.632052, 17.998123). There are seven other motorhomes here and so it’s like a little campsite, but free. The village has kindly provided an emptying and refilling point just 100 metres away. There is a sandy beach, rocky headlands and a variety of nesting birds. We may stay two nights.
View from Sommaroy Beach
When we went out for a walk to the beach some Terns (I haven’t identified the species yet) went mad and started dive bombing us and particularly Mabel, who was, of course very excited. They come within 6 inches or so of your head and are quite intimidating.
Melek and Mabel enjoy the view from Sommaroy! Photograph courtesy of Sarah.
The weather tonight is much brighter and the forecast, at the moment, is set fair for whenever we cross over to the islands for the next leg of our journey.