In the summer of 2023, Micha and I spent some time exploring Norway and visiting friends. We started with a trip to Fredrikstad, where my great-grandmother grew up, and then spent a few days exploring the capital city of Oslo. We finished the southern leg of our trip with a weekend in Munich to visit some old friends. After a short rest and recharge in Trondheim, we flew north to Tromsø and spent a few days in the city before setting out on a road trip through the Vesterålen archipelago, where we did a beautiful hike on the island of Senja. We then made our way to Andenes, where this post starts.
Day 5: Puffin safari and hiking Måtinden
We awoke early in the morning and drove to the beach town of Bleik for a “puffin safari” with Puffin Safari AS. Off the coast of Bleik sits an enormous, imposing rocky island jutting up out of the ground, home to approximately 200,000 puffins.
A couple of older Norwegian men take tourists out on their little fishing boat for a lap around the island to observe the puffins. They had a great banter between them. At one point, one of them pulled out a long pole with four hooks on the end, and mentioned that if any of us fell overboard, he would be happy to fish us out with his pole. They referred to the puffins as “mosquitoes” – from far away, they look like clouds of dots, and even up close they are much smaller than I thought they would be. Unfortunately they’re far too fast for me to take good pictures.
After a successful puffin safari, Micha and I hiked Måtinden – where we ran into our Czech friends Hannah and Pavel, and into the German family who took our picture on Segla. Because there are only two or three ferry departures per day, and there aren’t that many different hikes to do on each island, we tended to run into people we had seen earlier in the trip fairly often, which was fun.
The weather this time was chilly and cloudy, but the hike itself was beautiful. We got views of a green valley between the peaks, and of steep cliffs disappearing into the fog.
On our way down from the peak, the cloud cover lifted and parted a little, giving us some beautiful views of the coastline below. The white sandy beaches and clear blue water seemed out of place, like it belonged to a tropical island, not an Arctic one.
Day 6: The long drive back to Tromsø
The following day, we chose to take a road trip, driving the long way around Andfjord, past Narvik, and back to Tromsø. The drive took all day, but had incredible views of the fjords. Most of the roads lay along the coastlines, while a few wove between mountains, especially as we got back to mainland. We arrived in Tromsø in the evening, and the town of not quite 80,000 people felt like a sprawling metropolis compared to all the small fishing towns we had passed through on our journey. We packed our bags for our flight back to Trondheim, and got one last night’s rest in northern Norway before returning home.
