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| Sunrise across the Fjord - 1030am - view from the balcony |
It’s minus 2 degrees c outside and dark.
In fact it’s been dark for quite a while today. The sun rose around 1030 hours and set again
2 hours later at 12.30pm. This is
latitude 69.6828°
N, 18.9428° E - in the Arctic
Circle.
Welcome to Tromso (pronounced Tromsa by the locals)in Norway home to
72,000 inhabitants.
“Your picked the wrong time of year to go” comments one friend on SKYPE – you could have had all day sun instead!”
Well, that all depends on your goal for being here. Mine is to see the Northern lights.
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| Sun starting to set - 12.30pm (2 hours of "daylight") - 27 Nov 2014 |
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| view from the road - 12.10 - a brief walk from the apartment in Aslandvegen, Tromso |
I have chosen to stay in a place the opposite side of the
city in one of the fjords. The place is called Aslandvegen in Tromso and you
don’t need a lot of imagination around here to believe you are in the
Chronicles of Narnia and Aslan is nearby.
The Northern Lights activity map dials show the likelihood
of activity here over the next few days are good. That’s the good news. The forecast for rain today and snow tomorrow
are not so good news. Cloud cover is not
that useful for watching these natural fireworks.
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| Sporting the latest in polar fashions |
This is my last push and planned point on my journey before
winding my way back to Frankfurt then New Zealand. A birthday present to myself that I hope the
sky will unwrap for me. We’ll see.
Gunn has an effervescent personality. She lives with her little sister, Frida, in a
small apartment overlooking one of the fjords and across the bay from Tromso
town. Another gem of an AirBnB
find. When I arrive we chat – she is
from the bottom of Norway (Bergen) though enjoys working and living here. She works as a Nurse is the Gastro ward in
the local hospital – it is the largest in the North and receives a lot of
patients referred within the region. I
ask what she is doing all the way up here…is the scenery and place that
good? She just smiles.
Both sisters speak excellent English. That’s easy they comment – all TV here is in
English and we learn it all the way through school.
The next morning as I look at the view of the sunrise over
the balcony, I see what Gunn was smiling about.
The vista is breath-taking.
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| Every home should have one! |
The wall in the lounge is covered in a World map. Gunn and her sister are well travelled; there
are well thumbed books on the shelves covering Africa, Morocco, Mexico, US,
Indonesia to name a few. Gunn is still
relatively young and her sister is in her last year at school. “That’s an impressive list of travel
destinations.”
“Yes, born out of practicality really,” she replies
casually. “Norway is way too expensive
for locals to be able to travel here.
Anything overseas is cheap in comparison.” I’m quickly learning that.
Gunn explains some of the local fare and places. There are whales that have been sighted in
the bay of a neighbouring fjord. There’s
a great local supermarket that is owned privately so stocks mainly local
produce – it is about a 10 minute walk away.
There’s an island in the bay with a bridge over to it – and there are
usually wild reindeer there munching in the fields.
Much to see!
The sunrise this morning was around 10.30. I slept in due to a planned all-night vigil
for the Northern Lights tonight. I put
on my thermals and coat. “Have you got a
torch?” Gunn asks. It’s 11.00am and I am
heading out for some brunch. “You don’t
have much light left” she comments. “It
gets dark early and quickly here.”
I put my torch in my pocket.
Before I get out the door, Gunn slaps a reflective bracelet around my
jacket wrist “Leg or arm, it doesn’t matter where” she comments “ …just make
sure you wear it.” With all the
efficiency and kindness of a nurse, she ushers me out the door.
The sea is on my left as I negotiate the ice-covered
footpath to the supermarket. If you get
there early enough apparently there’s many food samples of all different
products “as good as a free breakfast” Gunn had said. Sure enough
-food fit for a king. Great
little spot and I buy some of the famous local “brown” cheese, some bread and
other fare and sit down by the waterfront to eat. It’s 12.10 in the afternoon and the sun is
already setting over the horizon. The
water looks calm and smooth enough to skate on – and I’m sure in a few months
you might be able to do just that.
I am here for 2 nights; my plane departs at 0630 tomorrow
back to Oslo en-route to Spain.
The number 42 bus weaves its way through the ice covered
roads into the sentrum area of the main city.
It is 2.00pm and feels more like 6.00pm as it’s been dark for a couple
of hours. This place plays with your
senses and it starts to dawn on you just how your subconscious handles your biorhythms including appetite and sleep/rest. For no apparent reason I feel hungry – the
body telling me it must be near dinner time, my watch telling me that this
could be a late lunch – though it was not that long ago that I ate. The city shops are a mix of tourist fare
(some good woollen clothes – Norwegian made – if it’s good enough for the
locals then…
Some sports shops – OK, well a lot of sports shops. Book shops and some restaurants - many of the more up-market ones offering
fresh seafood or reindeer steaks.
Of nights and lights
Gunn had said that the Northern Light activity could (if
someone remembers to turn the celestial light switch on) be active as early as
5.00pm up until around 2.00am.
Bio-rhythms askew, I head back over the other side of the bridge and
Fjord to rendezvous with a 5.30pm sky watch vigil at the apartment. Nature has a different plan and it is
raining.
Writing and blog back at the apartment with the odd peek out
the window and back door – looking skyward.
Rain.
It’s 10.30pm and Gunn arrives home from her shift. I have been at the keyboard and lost track of
time. “Have you seen the lights?’ she
asks. Apparently the rain has passed and
the night sky is clear. She leads me
outside and points to the distant night sky behind the house. “See?”
- it’s not the firework red and green that you see in the photos. Instead, as my eyes grow accustomed, I see an
eerie green light that almost looks like a mist seeping its way through the sky
like a green ink stain on a black carpet of night. “If you have a good camera and take a photo –
you’ll get to see it more clearly. When
conditions are like this, the naked eye can’t see the detail” coaches
Gunn. She points to the dirt trail that
weaves its way up the hill behind the houses in the neighbourhood. “You need to go up there, away from any street
or house lights if you want to get a decent view of it.”
Headlamp, coat , hat and camera, I negotiate the trail up
the hill. The path has been
well-trodden, the recent rain obliging the ruts and grooves by filling them in
and nature taking over the duties by freezing these into a sheet of ice – the
effect looks like a small glacier or frozen waterfall cascading down the
hill. Great as a path to guide – not
good for walking on.
At the top of the hill there is no-one, no sound, no light,
just trees and the night sky.
Clear.
I look up and try to spot the Aurora. It is hard and I oscillate between seeing a
typical night sky and imaging seeing a “fog” of green as though an extra in
some ghost movie. Time to try the
camera. Set to keep the shutter open
until it gets enough natural light, I point the camera skyward and click. The shutter opens and I try to hold it steady
– in the anticipation of the click of it closing and capturing the moment. 5 seconds and an eternity later the click of
the shutter closing – like the comfortable noise of a gate latch - secure. The display on the back of the camera pulses
with a glimpse of what the lens has seen.
Sure enough, green that my eye did not see.
I look up – trying to discern a shaft of light –trying in my
minds-eye to isolate and therefore contextualise exactly where the aurora
is. No use. It takes a while to dawn on me. I am actually standing looking up at one
point when in actual fact, the aurora is across the sky and all around me. I point the camera in several shots in an arc
over my head – sure enough, rewarded with green and red halo in each
shot…captured on digital, not discernible to the naked eye.
I smile. A metaphor
for life really –trying to capture and see the moment and not being able to
when in actual fact, it is going on all around you. The price you pay for focus is your distance
from the subject.
Apparently the clear view of the aurora in the night sky so
often in the postcards and pictures is rare to see with the naked eye. The vista tonight is more typical –an eerie
green that performs a silent and slow-motion dance across an ink-black night
sky.
It is close to midnight by the time I manage to negotiate my
way down the hill through the frozen waterfall of the path and back to the
apartment. Gunn has ordered a taxi for
the morning to rendezvous with my early flight.
It is picking me up at 0515 for a 6.30 flight to Oslo then two more
onward flights to arrive in Porto Portugal.
Tromso. This place has a rhythm and tone all of its own. It slows the heartbeat right down like an induced coma and provides vivid dreams of colour through glowing sunrises, calm and icy waters and apparitions that weave through a permanent night sky.
There’s a different and special perspective you get by being here. It is hard to put in words; instead my memory returns to that dreamy smile of a local when questioned why anyone would want to live here.
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