Norge, Part 3: Alta and the North

Now inspite of our best intentions and organisational skills........we happened to miss our flight to Alta at 8.30 the next morning. So Dagfinn organised a flight that left later in the day and stopped in Tromso, a town on an island a few hundred miles south of Alta. This ended up being quite good fun because we helped his friend work on their church, which had recently been bought and was being renovated. It was really good fun and they gave us coffee and cake. We got to Alta at about 10.30pm and were met by the lovely Rikke, who managed to squeeze three big packs, a dog box, 3 people and a dog into her car. Rikke provided us with Pizza while briefly stopping at her place to ditch the dog box and we headed south into some terrible weather to Dagfinns parents place. We arrived at about 1am and understandably Dagfinns parents were already asleep. Dagfinn showed us to our little house - it was really warm with lovely wooden walls and with its own woodfire: The next morning Jamie and I went for a run to explore the town of Burfjord while Dagfinn organised the ferry trip out into the fiord. We met up with Rikke and boarded the ferry in the afternoon bound for Reinfjordd. The ferry trip was about an hour and stopped at lots of little villages where very few people live year round. This is one of them: Only two houses are inhabited at this village:

The mountains towering in the background with a punishing looking saw-toothed ridge are quite famous and are called Kvænangen. They give the local Kommune its name.

All of the houses in this part of Norway are no older than WW2, because the Germans were so afraid the Russians would invade through Norway that they drove all the people out of their houses and burnt the houses to the ground or destroyed them. There are a few old churches left.

This is our first stop - the pier at Reinfjordd, the small village in the background:

Once we got to Reinfjordd a curious thing happened. This fluffy looking sheltey dog took a liking to us and decided to follow us. We yelled at it and chased it away but it was determined and ended up coming with us for two days. It was the coolest dog and I seriously considered dog knapping it and taking it back to the UK.

Anyway we started walking up the valley into the mountains - there was still heaps of snow on the ground, but we were prepared... we brought snowshoes.... or Dagfinn did.

Unfortunately Jamie's pair were a bit old and the plastic binding on the first one broke after 500m, then after taping that up with gaffer tape and bits of string we set off again and then the binding on Jamies other shoe broke as well. Out came the gaffer tape and nylon tape and we set off again. Then Tipi broke a toenail and bled all the way along the track so we gaffer taped her as well. YAY to gaffer tape!

After a couple of hours we found this primo spot on the snow to camp - right next to a big rock with a tree growing out of the top of it. So we dug flat platforms for our tents, pitched them and Dagfinn disappeared up the valley with his axe to find dead trees for firewood and I headed down to the river to collect a bit of water while Rikke and Jamie pitched the tents.

We also found this little pixie sitting on the rock.....

Once our camp was sorted we donned snowshoes and picked a saddle to climb up to to get a glimpse of the midnight sun. The sheltey dog of no name cruised along with us. It was a crazy dog, everytime a bit of snow went rolling down the steep slope we were climbing up it would career after it, fluffy tail swishing madly. It had no fear, but thats ok because I had enough for both of us.

We finally got to the saddle about 15 mins before midnight and low and behold......... there was a low bank of cloud just where the sun should be. The view was stunning though. It was pretty chilly - Jamie was using the dog of no name as a neck warmer because he forgot his downy, so we waited til about quarter of an hour after midnight and then headed back down the slope. Once back at the camp Dagfinn built a fire at the base of the rock and we had dinner and roasted marshmallows til 3 in the morning. The dog of no name decided it would sleep in our tent, on my feet. Actually I was very glad for this as my socks were wet and I had cold feet!! After a nice long sleep ( we got up at about midday) and some serious bumsliding (sorry haven't got photos of this). We packed up and headed back to Reinfjordd. Once in Reinfjordd Rikke took us along to visit a friend. She kindly let us use her kitchen to cook lunch - Snuring - a Norwegian students staple. I have no idea whats in it but its delicious and the best thing to eat when you are cold and wet. We also drank gallons of tea and enjoyed the warmth of a well insulated house. Our dog of no name left us at this point :( and we didn't see it again before getting on the ferry. The ferry took us even further out towards the open sea and to our last campsite. We were hoping the midnight sun might make an appearance for us there (actually we were not too worried about the midnight sun - the trip itself was just brilliant)

The water in the fjordds is just pristine. This is a shot of the water at the pier we got off at: And these are the freaky monster fish that Jamie photographed near the pier: They are cod that are caught in winter and hung outside to dry for about 6 months. Because the climate is so cold they don't rot and the water that freezes inside the fish break up the muscle fibres making the fish very soft to eat. They are very expensive to buy. You eat them with lots of butter and beer. We walked from the pier for about 2 miles to our last campsite. We saw a few reindeer on the way and even more of their footprints. They have very splayed hooves that work a bit like snowshoes by distributing their weight over a greater area of snow.

Tipi, Dagfinns husky carried all of our lollies, a very important job.

This is where we camped the last night:

If you look closely you can see some whitish coloured moss behind the tents. This is Reindeer moss. The only stuff they eat. Its also very slow growing so its quite precious.

We pretty much just chilled out at this campsite, some of us went fishing, some of us went exploring, some of us took photos, some of us ate copious amounts of licorice....coffee, brandy

We missed out on the sun - that dratted bank of cloud was back again.

Dagfinn and Rikke had a bit of trouble with the woodfire:

This is us waiting for the ferry to take us back to Burfjordd: The white line on this map is the route the ferry took to drop us off:

End of Norge adventures part three.