day 09: tromsoe and polar zoo

after getting up at the park ground next to tromsoe we drove to
the center of the town. our first stop was at the church, but it
was closed at that time in the morning. so we drove on to the
tromsoe museum. the streets were totaly empty and as in helsinki
we were the only people on the street. tomtom guided us to the
tromsoe museum. we thought we were just in time, since our paper
guide said the museum opens at 09:00. so we sat there and were
wondering why it's still closed at 09:15, until we found out that
we are in another time zone again. so we adjusted our clocks to
GMT +1. oh no, we got up one hour too early - it was 06:00 when
the alarm clock rang. so we got back to our camper, i took a
short nap, zombiequeen was reading, and we returned to the museum
at 09:00 sharp - this time it really was 09:00! when the museum
had opened its gates we went in, had a look at various
exhibitions, like a special exhibition on fire (one could try to
make fire themselves), of course a sami exhibition (this is a
must to every museum to show political correctness, i guess),
a special on climate changes, about the people living in the
stone age, another exhibition on the aurora borealis (another
must to every museum in north scandinavia). we were the only
people there, which is pretty cool and very enjoyable.
afterwards we drove to the polaria, a small but very nice museum
on the fauna around the northern polar areas. a highlight were
the living seals that had a big aquarium there they could swim
in.  one could get really close to them. unfortunately the light
conditions were very very bad in there and the seals were moving
very fast, so no sharp pictures were taken of those lovely
creatures. besides seals there were all kind of living animals
like sea-stars, fish, crabs, eels, etc. additionaly we saw a film
(again in 125 degree viewpoint angle, by the same company and
technology as the one shown at the north cape - scandinavians
seem to enjoy those techniques). it was about spitzbergen, over
and under the sea, filmed in either a boat or a helicopter. great
pictures again.
we left the camper at the parking ground of the polaria and went
to the center by foot. we saw the center and the harbour. very
lovely town with beautiful houses, but again not very many people
there, and the once we saw were most likely tourists. seems like
norwegians are having holidays and they all flee to warmer
countries, or they stay at home on sunday? we are not sure.
another attraction we've been visiting was the arctic cathedral.
there was an entrance fee of 25NOK (that's about 2.5EUR). the
church itself was ok, but we were a bit puzzled about the
entrance fee, because inside it looked like an ordinary church.
ok, there was a nice, big, glas-painted window but this
definitely was not worth the 2.5EUR. but, for the first time in
my live, i've been to a toilet in a church. that was worth the
entry. additionaly we've seen another member of the "world's
northernmost"-attractions: a brewery. so up to now this makes:
the world's northernmost point that can be reached by street
(north cape), town, catholic church community, university,
ice-free harbour (all in hammerfest), afterwards we left the
"paris of the north", heading for the lofoten. on the way there
we saw an advertisement for the polar zoo (of course the world's
northernmost one). spontaneously we decided to go there since the
weather was really awesome, and we hoped to finally see a moose
in full view. but we were very disappointed as we read a sign
saying "we are sorry, but the moose is dead.".  poor moose, poor
us. besides the moose there are foxes (polar and red), lynxes,
brown bears, badgers, domestic animals, wolves, musks, deers,
rendeers, and wolverins. this zoo has very very large enclosure
with wild growing plants in there. so it often happened, that we
didn't see any animal at all. either because they were hiding
somewhere within their large enclosures, or in their lair, lying
around in the gras or bushes, or they were dead. but in summary
we saw every second animal (badger, bear, wolves, polar foxes,
domestic animals, deers). after spending two hours in the zoo we
drove on southwards. but since it was already late camping
grounds were crowded. after two full camping grounds we finally
found a very beautiful one. besides the two of us there were only
three other campers and five tents there. after having our camper
plugged to an electricity outlet we took a walk around the
camping site.

 
 
 
 

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