Reached Kiruna, Sweden, yesterday (Monday) afternoon having taken the early flight from Heathrow.
Spent nearly 4 hours driving up to Boden on the Norwegian coast. Realised that my itinerary was an underestimate of time due to a lot of summer road resurfacing activity and a lorry in the roadside ditch. Collected 3 samples up to the Norwegian border and had some nice views of the lake near Abisko.
Very long day today. Set out from Boden just after 9 and didn’t get to the hotel at Skaidi until 8 this evening. Couldn’t keep up with the itinerary again. Probably too many photo stops. Some long stretches through forest and under leaden grey skies up to the Tromso turn off, but started to get a little blue sky as we travelled further NE and some stunning coastal views as the mountains started to appear. Collected 10 more samples on the route and saw a porpoise just off shore at one stop. Wind seemed to be all over the place and less than 2 m/s except at the head of one or two fjords. Refuelled on an excellent reindeer stew and some of the local cloudberries with dessert. Getting colder. Temperature down to 6°C going over one of the passes this afternoon.
– Dave Lowry, Royal Holloway University of London.
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Image credits: credit: Dave Lowry, RHUL.