Picking up in Tromsø, we proceed to learning to drive stick shift in ten minutes on the road to Hansnes, and then march onwards to Nordkjosbotn and a spectacular northern lights display.


you may note that Hansnes and Nordkjosbotn are in opposite directions. I drove to Hansnes, turned around, went back to Tromsø, verified that I was all right at stick shift by driving around downtown some, and then headed south to – and past – Nordkjosbotn. Memorize these names, and the spelling thereøf. There will be a quiz låter.


Traditional dusk. Actually, this very first night was just one of two times I got a sunset without it being absurdly overcast. (The other time was … the second night!) My ability to avoid rain and snow was pretty iffy, but it sure led to some very interesting conditions!


World-famous glowing trees of Norway. Actually, don’t tell anyone but there’s some car headlights involved. On the road to Nordkjosbotn, in the very last light of the setting sun.


Northern lights over the villages of Seljelvnes and Nordkjosbotn.


Same mountain, but totally different appearance of the northern lights several minutes later.


A typical Norway road, on which we learn how to drive stick. The first hill was sort of trouble. Four stalls before I managed to figure it out! Then after that it was easy… second gear, third, four… ahem, click, fourth!? Bueller?

No fourth. Turns out I was trying to put it into a nonexistent sixth gear. That explained nicely why I had such a problem with that very first hill – I was trying to scale it in third! After that, stick shift was significantly earlier.

In any case, Norwegian highway markers come in groups of as many as three signs: a speed limit, a road priority indicator (here, the white and yellow diamond implies a primary road, meaning that at any intersection you have the right of way), and finally a very plain highway number identifier. Here, we’re on state highway 863, going from Tromsø to Hansnes. A three-digit road tends to be a branch of a one- or two-digit road, and in this case 863 indeed branches off of 86.


What Norway lacks in pictorial route shields, they make up for in boundary signs. A kommune is an administrative region one below a county.


Norway’s green guide signs are yellow. Note the middle city – it doesn’t look like it has a Norwegian name, for very good reason: it’s in Finland. The road we’re on (E-8) splits at Nordkjosbotn – one branch goes to Narvik, which is due south, while the other proceeds southeast into cold, grim northern Finland and Sweden.


The constellation Orion, rising over the mountains, in the absolute last of the dusk.


Norway loves its tunnels. We will revisit this theme N times between here and Day 6.


Not long after dusk, the northern lights begin. Note the two purple jets – one pointing towards eleven o’clock, the other towards one-thirty – at the left edge of the primary green glow.


Every few minutes, the lights flare in intensity for a few seconds. Note much lower exposure levels of foreground elements, with similar apparent brightness of aurora.


Close up, over the mountains.


This is the beginning of the brightest display I caught all night.


Directly overhead. This is the widest-angle lens I had, and it caught maybe one-tenth of the entire display.


Here, I’m aiming wildly, trying to figure out which direction will have the best display at any given time.


In the other direction.


That’s all, folks.