Pleasure and Pain on Senja

I was completely unprepared for Senja. After the gently undulating hills of Helgeland, Lofoten and Andoy I was feeling confident of traversing Senja in an afternoon. The approach should have tipped me off

but I was too busy admiring the beauty of the Cloud falling over the Mountain. As soon as we left the port of Gryllefjord we started climbing...and climbing...and climbing, then a steep decent down the other side. There were may interesting things to see on the way like

this Troll theme park, or

this beautiful "Steinsopp" (in Norwegian) and after some time I caught up to Bjorn who had been fishing for quite a while, albeit unsuccessfully. Luckily I had brought dinner

so we ate Porcini Risotto and Flintsteaks. At Midnight we rode on for a while till we reached the crossroad of Finnsnes and Botnhamn. Bjorn is a morning person and wanted to crash and then go on to Finnsnes whereas I was just getting energy so we decided to go our own way. My route led straight up to the snow line. By the time I reached the top I was cursing my decision until I saw 

this magical Lake

so at 2am in the twilight with a full Moon feeling tired, hot and sweaty I went for a swim. All the pain and anguish turned into pure ecstasy. It is a moment I will never forget.Then I went through the tunnel and saw

 Fully energized I continued to Steinfjorden where I spotted some tents near the shore and,,,monkey see...monkey do, at 4am I pitched my tent. I got up at 10am and without further ado I hit the road to Botnhamn. I felt a sense of urgency now and concentrated on the km's. Again there were steep hills, tunnels and wonderful sights but no more photo's or mushrooms slowed me down. I made the ferry with half an hour to spare. By the time I reached Brensholmen on the Island of Kvaloya I was thoroughly exhausted  and was hoping to get a Bus to Tromso. No such luck. The bus shed gave me no useful information so I headed to Tromso. It was 4.30 pm and I had 22 hours to do 55km. The first 23km were easy but then came another Mountain. One hour later I was at the top and being only 20 downhill km from the Scandik Hotel, a hot Shower and a soft bed I relaxed and thought Dinner would be a good Idea. Also I had picked up a few more mushrooms and still had instant soup and dried stockfish. Not stuff to take to a hotel.

So ends my epic Trondheim to Tromso saga, stay tuned for reports from the tournament.

Ciao for now :-)