Polaria

We woke up to better weather this morning and had a nice slow morning getting breakfast, having showers (immaculate bathrooms) and heading back into Tromso where it was misty and raining again!  Oh hum.  

The gang

We had given Tom lots of options of things to do in Tromsø today and he chose to go to Polaria where there is an 180 degree cinema showing various films and more importantly an aquarium and a pool with 4 seals.  Give him an activity which includes animals and he always chooses it, so off we went.  I was on map duty trying to get us there - easier said than done when the main roads of Tromsø are being dug up.  We did eventually make it but we used a lot of fuel up!  We parked up and headed in.  As we headed into Tromsø today we noticed a huge cruise ship, Queen Elizabeth, was in and when we got to Polaria, the first thing we heard was an English accent.  We then realised that we had hardly met any Brits at all over the last 2 weeks - just one couple in a motor home in Alta and the military man in Alta who is now Norwegian via passport and family.  Felt strange to hear someone else speak the same language as us with the same accent, but I think always the sign of a good holiday when you have got away from fellow countrymen and especially now, don’t want to know what is happening at home politically - it is too depressing!

Anyway, there was a queue to get in and then we noticed lots of other English accents - we had got swamped with cruise ship passengers!  Oh hum, never mind, can’t complain, we have had almost every museum to ourselves so I guess we now needed to share.  We first went to the cinema, where someone confirmed to us that they were passengers from the ship - apparently 2,000 on board a cruise from Southampton to Tromsø and back - stopping off at other Norwegian ports.  We settled down to watch a film about Svalbard which was very bleak but scenic.  The cruise ship passengers were then asked to go to a certain exhibition to continue their tour, we took note and went in the opposite direction!

Climbing wall at Polaria

We had noticed there was a cafe at the site, so thought we would go and see if they had anything we could have for lunch as we have run out of food in the motor home.  We were in luck - they had cheese and ham rolls and for only 42Kr which was amazingly cheap.  We immediately took them - they were good too - on really nice bread and they were heated up for us, meaning the cheese went all gooey.  Fantastic.  We enjoyed them and even went back for pudding - a lovely slice of apple pie.

Next we headed for the seal pool as they were feeding them.  They have 4 seals: 2 Harbour Seals and 2 Bearded Seals.  The Bearded Seals were especially impressive, they were large, rotund and had fantastic white whiskers.  Anyway, the trainers put them through their games and they were all rewarded with fish.  The people from the cruise then headed to their next stop and the museum emptied.  Yay.  We had a look around the aquarium, then Tom had a play in the children’s area before we went to the cinema again to see a film about the northern lights.  They did explain how the northern lights manifest - can’t say I completely followed the explanation - physics is not my strong subject, but the cinematography was amazing and we recognised some of the places they filmed.  Must say it whetted our appetite to come back again in the winter when we can see the place in snow and get a chance to see the northern lights.  Not sure about driving a motor home in the snow and ice though?!

Harbour seal being "instructed"

We went back to say goodbye to the seals, just as the museum announced they were to do a show with the seals in the auditorium, so we stayed to watch that and then we left.  Our next job was to get some fuel - we had run the van down to fumes only as fuel is cheaper at the weekends here.  On the way in we tried to get fuel at 2 separate places, but neither of them would take cash and we need to get rid of some cash so we drove away.  In the end we had to put 10 litres in via card just to be sure of getting somewhere without running out!

Our next plan was to drive round the island which Tromsø is on to find a rough camp for the night (the island isn’t that big, in fact the city spills on to the shores of land either side of it as a result of growth.  I had had a look on Google Earth last night to find some places, and had found 2 spots that looked good candidates.  Hummmm, the city council certainly do not want motor homes in the city.  Both parking spaces had been blocked off with concrete blocks to stop any vehicle entering - meaning that there were parking spaces with picnic benches etc that no-one could use (unless they went on foot!).  We gave up, but what to do - there is one official camping place in Tromsø but every review said it was very overpriced and facilities are awful.  Did we want to spend a lot of money on a rubbish place or do we travel 30km to go back to the campsite we stayed in last night?  Then Matt had a bright idea - why don’t we call up the company we hired the motor home from and ask them if we could park up and stay overnight?  He did that and they said yes.  So in the end we get a free camping place with free electric hook up.  Fab.  Not the most glamorous place to camp, but hey, it was free and close to where we were.

Queen Elizabeth leaving Tromsø

We then realised we needed to buy tonight’s tea - so we headed to a shopping centre we spotted yesterday and went for a mooch around the shops.  Glad to report that Norwegian shopping malls are as dull as English ones but more expensive.  Needless to say, nothing got bought.  We ended up in the supermarket and bought some prawns and sweet and sour sauce to go with our remaining pasta for tea.  We then finished our lap of the island, found a place to fill up with fuel with cash and then went to the motor home lot to park up.  Wow!  When we picked up our motor home it was one of about 5, on arrival today there must be 30 or 40 parked up.  In fact there was only just enough space left for Bert to fit in.  Most of the motor homes were exactly the same as Bert, although there were a couple smaller and 1 bigger.  We had a good mooch around.  To our surprised, loads of the vehicles were left open, some doors were open, there weren’t even any gates on the lot, gas bottles on view etc.  If this was the UK there would be electric gates, CCTV and a huge security risk!

Anyway we parked up, watched the Queen Elizabeth sail past and then had tea.  We will have to say goodbye to Bert tomorrow - we will miss him, he’s been good to us. 

Here's a video clip of us doing a walk around explanation of out motor home: https://youtu.be/jV52q5DGV0M