Tromso

 by Wiebe

Day 128 | Over the mountains to Badderen

Day 128 | Wednesday July 20

My mission is to reach the North Cape and between there and where I am now is just not that much to do, sustainable wise. The last weeks I haven’t visited any projects and won’t do that the coming weeks as they are mostly in the more populated areas. I try to find a good mix between traveling and visiting sustainable projects, now the travel has the overhand.

My host Ove already left for work when I woke up at 9. I had a phone call from the radio during that night and that always breaks me up so I woke up a bit later, for the Dutchies you can listen to that interview here.
I said goodbye to Ove’s daughter and started driving to Badderen. Ove had a friend there who was willing to plug me in. On the way I experienced some problems again. The emergency signal started beeping and this time I couldn’t fix it. I pulled out the cable and continued driving without visible data of the battery status. Which was scary as I had to climb 700 meters so I did regular stops to put in the cable, start the computer and check the battery status.

When I arrived in Badderen I had 6% left. I had some time to try to solve the problem and again the plug of the computer broke. Rob in Lofoten had solderet this. Luckily my host Kurt was a technician and helped me solder the cable again. It worked and I could charge the car, tomorrow I really need to find a new plug otherwise it will get a problem. It’s a 4 pins ATX 12V power connector and you can’t buy those in a ordinary computer store. Tomorrow I will arrive in Alta which is the last “city” before the North Cape.

Kurt is a nice guy who lives here with his 2 children. He met my last nights host Ove during an off-road race and now they are still in touch. He is an electrician on high power and fiber optics cables. Every time when there are problems with the car I’m in the lucky position that my host has knowledge about electricity.
For dinner Kurt made a dish with moose. Moose and Reindeers are the 2 animals which you find very often here and for me it was the first time I ate those animals, he let me try a peace of Reindeer later on and it had a very distinct, salty and special taste. It’s definitely worth to try if you ever end up in North Norway!

Pictures of today

Kurt's house in Badderen
A view to a kill
Kurt's house
The man Kurt
And this view I had from my caravan
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 by Wiebe

Day 126 & 127 | Wild reindeers in Tromsø

Day 126 | Monday July 18

Hotel Bardufoss was were I woke up this morning. After breakfast I thanked them for helping me and started driving to Tromsø, which was in reach now. Around noon I got there and it was still raining, I believe it has been raining for 3 days straight now. Still that doesn’t take away the pleasure of being in Norway because there are so many nice things to see here.

One of Tromsø’s highlights is the church on top of the hill, it has a modern shape and you can get nice pictures from it. The city is called the ‘Gateway to the arctic’ as it’s the last actual city in the North. The city is at its best in the winter, when all the streets are covered in snow and the northern lights shine bright above the roofs.

My hosts live 30 minutes outside of Tromsø, again in a house on the hill. They have a view over the sea and they can spot whales from their living room! How nice is that?!

Robin was the one who plugged me in and lives here with his wife and 4 year old daughter. His daughter continuously talked to me in Norwegian. Apparently she asked me how many kids I had, she is obsessed with kids according to dad. Later she showed me her money which she received last week when her first teeth fell out, how cute.

Robin is an EV-enthusiast and drives the KIA Soul which he uses for daily commute. He was surprised that I made it all the way from Bardufoss to his house on a single charge, I’m still amazed by it too. Even in Norway with all the hills and max speeds around 70KM/h I can get to 180 kilometers, which is a dream for most electric car drivers.

Day 127 | Tuesday July 18

There are days when you have 4 appointments and running from one place to another and there are days where you can relax and have the time do anything I want. Today was such a day. Robin told me that I really needed to look around his island so I did. It is not so populated and also tourists where not around. It felt like I was alone here and the nature had been untouched either. I even spotted a reindeer in the wild! I knew you can spot them in Norway and after 3 weeks I finally saw one. They are quitte big but seem very harmless.

Around 4 I got to my next pluggers who live on the mainland, I was not sure were it was exactly and stopped at a supermarket to pick up wifi. I was wandering around with my phone in the hand and a woman asked me if I was playing Pokemon, so funny how this game changes so much.

Ove, IT specialist and electric car owner, was the one who invited me. His house used to be a bank and parts of that were still visible. In the basement he has a huge vault with doors and walls of 50cm thick. Next to that was a bunker to hide from nuclear attacks, crazy stuff.

QUESTION!

So most of you know that I have been doing daily videos in the beginning of this trip and I decided to stop that. Now my question to you is: do you prefer these blogs or should I go back to video?? I’m doubting about doing videos again and hope to make a decision with your input. Let me know in the comments below.

Pictures of today

On the island
Little house on the prairie
Reindeer!
The Island
The Island
Vault door 1
Vault door 2
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