Mon, 04 Aug 2003

author Tim	location Inari, Lapland, Finland
posted 00:30 EEST 07/08/03	section Europe2002/Europe/Norge ( all photos )

Around Tromsø, the North ( 16 photos )
First on the agenda in the morning was to get some more of our money's worth by having another long hot shower. A nice change seeing that we are going a few days with out, saving money by not going into caravan parks where possible.
We drove into Tromsø itself, over the bridge then down to the south end of the island to have a look around the Tromsø Museum Universitetsmuseet. We headed there mainly to learn more about the indigenous population of northern Norway, Sweden and Finland - the Sami. There was an exhibition which was interesting, but most of it was set up in the 1970s, since when much has changed.
Sure, we learnt a bit, but the wildlife sections proved to be more interesting, showcasing stuffed brown bears, polar bears, wolverines, wolves, and highly strange whales with two metre tusks. All good since we haven't seen much wildlife in the wild.
Next on the list was a visit to the world's nothernmost (you hear those words a lot in Tromsø) brewery, Mack. This is attached to the Ølhallen pub, the oldest in the city at seventy-five years of age.
The tour was quite a bit more intimate than the one you get at the Guiness factory, for example. Here, you are escorted around the place by one of the owners in a group of twelve or so, watching the bottling, brewing, and monitoring of the beer.
Oh, and then at the end you get to taste some of course. We have tried a little of their beer as we have headed north, and it's quite good. They also bottle Coca-Cola, and claim it is the best in the world as they can just get the water out of the source, no chemicals required for purification.
Sitting for a while sampling the products in the pub (although not too much what with Norge's 0.02 blood alcohol limit), Liz decided to try some dried fish stuff out, presumably similar to that we have seen drying on racks around the place. Perhaps not too suprisingly, quite a lot of it went un-eaten.
Still on the trail of some gas, we headed to the North end of the island in search of a place who specialised in the stuff. It turned out they were next to useless, sending us instead to the huge hardware store next door. There, a helpful guy took one look and said "you won't get that in Norway". It seems that about three years ago, all of the Butane was taken out of Norway, replaced all over with Propane. No, we couldn't put Propane in our Butane container. So, at least we have a reason now, annoying as it is.
Heading south out of the city, we stopped in Nordkjosbotn for some fuel (it's cheaper than in Tromsø, perhaps the fuel truck has to make a special trip in there so the prices are higher?). Struck by inspiration, I spotted a cheap barbeque at the service station which was fairly rapidly purchased along with some coals. We were going to have cheap dinner yet! Next task was something to cook, and just across the road a shop provided the answer - Grillpølse. They looked kind of like sausages, so we grabbed them and hit the road.
We stopped to fire the new toy up just south-east of Olderdalen, alongside a beautiful fjord. Half a notebook, several brochures, and most of a bottle of nailpolish remover later, we had a fire! Opening up our food purchase, we noticed we had purchased the equivalent of frankfurts - they eat them everywhere here, but you wouldn't call them fantastic food. No matter, as it was better than tuna sandwiches we would have been eating otherwise.
Happy with ourselves for managing to organise hot food once again, we hit the road. Not much farther, we slowed to a halt for half an hour or so at a bad-looking traffic accident. No need to attempt to offer our help as the ambulances were already there. The sound of people being cut out of their cars reminded us to be careful on these roads.
We drove on until after midnight, taking in what I can honestly say is the most amazing sunset I have ever seen. We were constantly saying "look at that bit over there!" as we rounded every corner. No words for it, just pictures. Eventually we found a nice spot on a hill off the road a little to free-camp again, with not too much distance to cover North the next day.

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