Sirdal in the summer (May, Jun, July, Aug, Sep)

For almost everybody else Sirdal is the go to place for winter ---  plenty of snow for downhill and cross country skiing. For us it's the summer --- for hiking, climbing, fishing and just hanging around looking at sheep. Obviously in winter the cabins are fully booked by these ski crazed folks (every weekend!), during the summer the place is a bit more sane .... less people and more sheep; and plenty of calming, beautiful mountain scenery.

Bergen in May

Our first trip to Bergen ... fabulous! Famous for it's allegedly horizontal rain, we were lucky not have experienced it all over our long weekend stay. A beautiful compact city with plenty to offer from chic people watching plaza's to mountain tops, all within an hour's commute from your base in the city.

Chasing aurora in Tromso

This was our second trip to Tromso, staying at the same cabin we stayed at last trip ... The River House at the edge of the village Oldervik. It was supposed to be our deep immersion into northern -20 deg C temperatures and snowbound landscapes. Just our luck it turned out to be unseasonably warm Feb for 2014, if that was ever possible. It felt almost May climate wise. We hardly used the bulky snow suits we brought all the way from Stavanger. We had snow (which was dumped back in Nov of 2013) and the rest of the week was sleet and rain!

Driving the dogs.

Roaming around near Langness.

It's Feb and there's hardly any snow.

Fooling around for the camera.

More fooling around shots.

Kvaloya mountains in the background.

Aurora in the background.

Lyngen Alps in the background.

From Tromsodalen overlooking the city.

Exploring Oldervik.

Aurora in Tromso.

Mountain views.

A week in Tromso

We stayed two nites at one of the Frogner Apartments in Oslo before flying off to Tromso on Staurday afternoon.

In Oslo the children visited Heldi and Nisa's family and spent time hanging out with their children Shala (14), Shekka (12), Tariq (4) and Zayyid (almost 1). They were buddies at ISS in Stavanger the previous year prior to Heldi's move to Oslo a month ago. There really wasn't much to do in Oslo when all the kids wanted to do was hangout at home and play. We managed to persuade them to take a stroll to Vigdalen's Park in Oslo so they fool around some more, outdoors this time.

We flew to Tromso on Saturday and stayed a week at Riverhouse, a holiday house in a small fishing village of Oldervik, about an hour's drive from Tromso city. Population of Oldervik stood at 100 but probably just saw less than 10 of them walking about during the day. A quiet little village by the sea, main occupation seems to be fishery.

Throughout the week our main activities were birdwatching though the kids had two full days roaming about Polaria, the Polar Museum, Tromso Museum, The Science Center, as well as a quick photo op at the Arctic Cathedral. Tromso is a very scenic city with majestic snow covered mountains all around.

The area nearby has plenty of venues for outdoorsy kind of activities, exactly what we were looking for. As this was our first visit, most of the time we were just gawking at the scenery.

 Next trip we'll do more ... like visit the outlying islands to look for whales, see the seabirds and visit the island which has one family of 5 living on it, Musvaer just of Vengasoya.

A week in a lighthouse in Lista

It was a week of walking, birdwatching and exploring new places we haven't been to further south than Mandal. We booked a week's stay in a coastal lighthouse in Lista, famous for it's bird ringing station. It's also only a short drive away to Hellvik and Farsund.