15 September 2002 - Still alive!
Fear ye not! We are still alive! After a few days of chilling (and not driving), coupled with a small technological nightmare courtesy of the incompetence of the O2 mobile phone network, have meant you may have missed us. You may even have worried about us! Alternatively you may have breathed a sigh of relief and relaxed in your warm office chair, happily thinking we were going to leave you alone having made it this far, and that you wouldn't get any more essays by email.

You were wrong.

Friday morning saw us leaving Bodo as fast as we could, stopping only for a brief Burger King breakfast. I'm not proud to admit that, but they really do seem to be the only places open round here. We decided over a coffee (not in Burger King) that with another 4 days ahead of us, we ought to head further North and check out Tromso, reputed to be the party capital of the Nordlands and the best spot on the planet for watching the Northern Lights. The 300 odd miles north was quite a small hop given the distances we had been covering over the last week, so we reckoned we would be there early enough in the evening to get a good night out under our belts, and hopefully some decent food...

The journey up the Arctic highway to the Northern most town of, well of anywhere really, didn't go entirely according to plan.

Leaving Bodo was straight forward enough - navigation becomes so much easier when there is only one road - and the weather looked favourable as Al discovered a 'Power Puff Girls' Mini Disk in the car... Claiming it was purely a demonstration of technological integration - "from Internet through MP3 to MiniDisk..." - Dan protested his innocence. And then asked if it could be played. He was even given enough time to make up something about recording it for his little sister Bethany, but he even failed to dodge the issue that way.

An hour or so later we had covered a pathetic 30 miles to the Fjord crossing at Vestfjorden. Not only was the weather getting worse, but we were spending most of our time stuck behind Norwegian drivers who all seem to pootle around at 30mph on roads too twisty to overtake. Having finally caught a ferry (Hurrah! Told you we were capable of being somewhere on time! Ok, we were the last car on it and it started moving whilst we were still parking. Happy now?) we crossed Vestfjorden in about 30 minutes and set off on the next leg.

Apart from driving badly, there is something else the Norwegians excel in - building tunnels. And speaking Norwegian, obviously. As we wound our way in and out of the fjord dotted coastline, tunnels of anywhere between 1 and 4 miles long became common and one D Chick discovered just how fast you can actually go in a straight line through a mountain. Some of the tunnels even have junctions and roundabouts in them, which can come as quite a surprise if you drive the same way in life that you do on a Playstation.

The rain, the Norwegian drivers and the poor quality of the road in places meant we didn't reach Tromso until about 9pm - over 8 hours non-stop. Given the rain and general lack of warmth up here, camping was the last thing on our minds as we checked into the Clarion Hotel on the water front - if Magnasoma.com designed hotels they would probably look like the Clarion, odd angles and brushed aluminium everywhere. 'Oh so contemporary daaaaarling'... The hotel had some particularly nice features (the young lady in the restaurant being one of them) so after an hour of post-drive chilling, a shower and ten minutes of Al trying to find the Norwegian for "Hellooooo ladies, would you like to come back to my hotel? It has a hot-tub on the roof over looking the harbour, you know..." we decided to head out for some food.

10:30 and we had made it to the best fish restaurant in town - it was even open! At last, some real food! A brief review of the menu revealed such highlights as the 'Seal Deal', although they were sadly out of whale. 2 bowls of the most amazing sea food soup later and we were happily tucking into Arctic Shark and a beer (£9 a pint) whilst Al muttered something about hot tubs and stared at the waitress.

Tromso was kicking as we made our way out of the restaurant. Having made friends with some young ladies at the cash point we decided to find somewhere a little chilled for a pint and a rest. Real food, in vast quantities, had made us a little lethargic! A pudding of Polar Bear Dangle Berries in sauce (strange sense of humour the Norwegians have) hadn't helped on the bloated front.

Two hours later and even a switch from beer to G&T's in the 'Solid' bar in Tromso town centre wasn't helping the bloated, not to mention knackered, adventurers. Having established that the bars were open until 4:30am on Saturdays, we called it a night at about 2am and decided we would stay another night and do Saturday night some justice...

Quote of the day - Dan, on the small towns that cluster around the mouths of the fjords:

'Why do people live here? It's just stupid if you ask me. This one isn't even by the sea, so there really is no point in it at all...'

It's nice to travel in such broad minded and educated company.

More soon..

--
Thanks to Miss D Phillips of Tunbridge Wells, who has sent us in a lovely cabbage, expressing concern over the lack of greens that we have been eating. Rest assured Miss Phillips! We have had lots of vegetables now! Bit of a shock to the system mind...

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