9.9.18 Day 10 - Hurtigruten-Harstad, Tromsø

After a big day yesterday from crossing the Polar Circle to chasing the Northern Lights we allowed ourselves a sleep in, with a meeting time of 10 after breakfast. We all failed. I was up just after 6, no real light in the sunrise so laid in for a bit before shower and out to see what there was to see. We docked at a little port of Harstad at 6.45 for an hour so I got off and had a wander around the town.

A peg sculpture in the main street

Buildings

More beautiful old buildings.

So many towns have stunning flower displays and Harstad was no exception.

I love the colours.

This window was a bit different

A sculpture by the dock.

Some sailor I guess

An old Customs building I suspect

And from the other side in early morning light

Harstad’s free camping area maybe.

Walking back to the ship. Very few got off so I was keen to be back on board early

The water is so clear and clean.

Nordkapp tightly tied to dock.

Safely back and ready to board.
After that I went back to cabin to wash clothes and then some more looking outside before breakfast. Ran into both Suzie and Tracy at breaky. After breaky there was a little bit of downtime. The weather this morning was foggy with occasional breaks of sunshine and there was a definite chill in the air. I tried to spend some time on photos etc, got chatting to a couple from Sydney who were wearing Aurora Expeditions gear, they have just finished a Svalbard/Iceland/Greenland trip and have also down Antarctica. They were really keen bushwalkers and finding this trip quite slow and lots of people.

Then it was time to attend the lecture about Reindeer Herding which is done by the Sami people, followed by a movie about Tromsø, our main stop for the day.

Some points if Interest from the lecture with Eldrun:

There are 40 000 Sami people in Norway with only 3000 still herding Reindeer in the Finnmark region.
Mosquitoes are rife in spring in inland areas and suck 2 litres of blood from a Reindeer in a day.
Reindeer shed their antlers every year and the males lose antlers in Autumn, females in spring. The females keep their antlers during pregnancy and after birth to enable them to fight off the males for food and survival for themselves and offspring.

Here we are at our lecture with Eldrun

A bit more time wandering, but fog was thick. Interesting to watch and listen to ship sounding it’s horn at regular intervals and hearing the echoes down the fjords.

A little bit of sunshine through the fog.

Fog settling in.

The flag and fog

Then some photo transferring, sorted the very ordinary shots of Northern Lights for Facecook, then it was lunch and time to get upstairs for a point of interest which was an Island where one lone Musk Ox lives (we didn’t see him.) He was one of 25 imported to grow wool however it wasn’t successful and the others have all died. Then there was a King Crab Presentation which was quite interesting. The crabs were imported to create a food source and to provide another industry. They are delicious eating but are a bit destructive to the seabed, leaving a desert behind them. This year has been better and they are finding a balance it seems.

Lunch at restaurant on level 4 -Norway’s Coastal Kitchen

King crab discussion.

Martin and Eldrun from the Expediton team with the king crab.

Each crab now has a tag with a QR code which provides info on where found, weight etc. this bloke was reading some of the info.

At 2.15 we arrived at Tromsø.

We were met at port by Bernhardt (B) who was holding the Suzie Sloan sign. B is a German living in Norway, he has his family here and is studying Sami language in Tromsø. He had some things planned which didn’t include the Arctic Cathedral which we added to the agenda.

B spoke at a million miles and hour and was a little hard to understand- again we were overwhelmed with facts and figures. Little of which I can recall two days later when I’m getting around to making notes.

We visited the Art Gallery - some interesting modern stuff.

There was an elephant piece I really liked.

An amazing old painting that captures the light perfectly

The last room was an exhibit by a famous embroider in her 80’s I think. It was prob my favourite work. She has created a 21 metre long piece (too long for display in this gallery) that depicts life up here. Here name is Britta Marakett-Labba - you could google her work.

Amundsen and Nansen are everywhere here - Amundsen stopped here and hired sailors and acquired much equipment and supplies from Tromsø.

We stopped at a kiosk to purchase bus tickets. Came across the Tromsø manhole cover and a cenotaph to the unknown sailor. B also pointed out a mural depicting Tromsø.

We headed off towards the Polar Museum and learnt a lot about an old house - an original 1770’s model with original timber on one side still ok and some renovated timbers were already rotting.

There was a little cove beside the museum lined with harpoons for the Minke whale hunting, only the grenade tipped harpoon is used today as it kills instantly. They hunt Minke as they are plentiful and sustainable according to B. He also that tides are about 2.5m so we took note of water level before and after our museum visit - it was a notable drop.

The polar museum was well done. Much about the history of hunters, explorers - Amundsen and Nansen, and others such as Wanny Woldstad - an amazing woman who was a professional housewife providing services to women on maternity leave from their own household chores. Wanny was widowed and then became the first cab driver with an automobile, she later became a hunter of seals, polar bears and other arctic wildlife - she was highly successful and took both her sons on into the business. Later in life she returned to her professional housewife role.

Interesting to see a walrus skeleton and skin - so big and bone structure just like us!

There was a preserved street outside with Norway’s first electric power and lights.

Another awesome mural just completed last week- Walls of Women. This was the first in a series and depicts Wanny Woldstad.

After a bit more wandering around the city we caught a bus over the Tromsø bridge to the Arctic Cathedral - A stunningly simple church but very effective.

Then back to old town where we saw a Boutique Brewery - co owners were a young kid who began home brewing at an early age and a descendent of Amundsen. One of 4 boutique breweries in town. Home brews are very popular here as alcohol is extremely expensive.

Our last key point of interest was the old Gothic wooden church - a beautiful building and the only wooden gothic church - they are usually brick or stone.

Back to the ship right on time and we were mentally exhausted from working so hard listening and understanding and taking in all of B’s information. So we recovered the remainder of last nights wine from Suzie’s cabin, secured some ice and glasses and had a well earned tipple in the Explorer lounge. It was such a relief to relax for a bit.

Sunset shots, then dinner. We actually remembered to take some food porn shots tonight.

Then it was off to hunt the Aurora again.

Bernhardt meeting Suzie

View of bridge and Arctic Cathedral

Amundsen

Us with Amundsen

Elephant art

Other art

Kids get a blue paper crown on their birthday. This is art about that.

Fabulous painting that nails the light here.

The amazing Sami embroiderer.

And again. Crows turning onto policeman oppressing the Sami people.

Reindeer pulling a sled

Tromsø manhole cover

Tromsø mural

Memorial to unknown soldier.

Sauna barrel on back of working boat.

Listening to B

The story of Wanny Woldstad

Musk Ox

Puffin

First electric street lamps.

Fire hydrant hidden in the garden

Wanny

Wanny doing her bit for gender equality back in the 1930’s

Bus across the bridge to Arctic Cathedral

Back end.

Wooden gothic church

Beautiful .

Pouring our leftover wine. Equal measures.

Cheers and we managed three of the Popular seats

The view departing Tromsø

Sunset

Dinner. Salmon with fennel.
Have forgotten most meals to take the food porn shots, apologies for that. The breaky and lunch is all buffet style and more food than you can poke a stick at. Dinner has been served - 3 courses each night (except first and last night which were buffets) lots of fish - Norway runs on fishing and oil. We opted for the superior wine package- a bottle to share per day - it cost 3210NOK which translates to $543.00 AUD - expensive but best way to do it. We also got three bottles of sparkling water each night.

Oh and by the way we saw Northern Lights AGAIN tonight. They were much stronger than last night and swirled and danced around overhead. Stil impossibile to capture from the moving ship. I will post some pics when I get a minute to sort through the many snaps I took.

CAMERA PICS - NORTHERN LIGHTS.
Again the shots aren't clear (moving ship and moving me) but they give a sense of how fortunate we have been to see such a show. I also hear that Tassie had a good showing at the same time. We learnt that the sun activity effects the lights at both poles, but due to the light conditions, it may or may not be seen.