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Have car will travel. Tromso is a small islet hidden amongst a maze of fiords and islands interconnected these days by bridges and ferries. Road travel is slow, with switchbacks around the fiords, snowy roads (and snowstorms) to contend with, and even the occasional herd of wild reindeer. We explored some of the countryside within a few hours of Tromso, visiting the villages of Sommeroy, Bakkejord, Ersfjordbotn and Kvaloyvagen amongst others, and we even entertained hopes of landing a fish or two using the collapsible rods we’d brought with us from home. But we soon realized that was a near impossible task.
Everywhere the shore was buried in a metre or two of soft snow making access to the water impractical. The one spot we did find, a snow-covered wharf at a fishing village seemingly shut down for winter, became a pain rather than a pleasure from the outset when the car thermometer confirmed that the outside air temperature had dropped below –12 C. We fished as long as we could, without success, until the pain in our hands and feet became unbearable and drove us back to the car, and a long drive home along snowy roads increasingly ill defined in the furry white landscape as the sun fell exhausted below the horizon.
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