09-Jul-2004 -- So far the summer in north Sweden has been wet and cold, due to winds from south and east. I decided to go to Norway, on the other side of the Caledonian mountain range, to find some better weather. People in the area of Bodö said the summer in north Norway had been fantastic so far, while south Norway had been experiencing pouring rain many days.

The 67Nx17E confluence is located just east of the shore of a peninsula. I went south from the Saltstraumen bridge, spanning the Saltstraumen, the world's largest tide water stream between the big Skjerstadsfjorden and the open ocean, Saltfjorden. On road 17, near Oterstranda, I took north on the little road (with a tunnel) to Forstranda. The last part was a poor gravel road. The last house is called Valle and it was an abandoned harbour pier there and a newly renovated building with the name Tullamore. I put the canoe into the sea. It was a steep shore and very rocky, and a bit tricky because of slippery rockweed. The distance to the confluence from the pier was 1.2 km, and it took about 30 minutes to go there. Two rough-legged buzzards were sitting quite close to some grazing sheep but they flew away when I came closer.

The confluence point is located in tidewater in Sörfjorden fiord about 10 m east of the shore. The vegetation type on shore is birch forest with low trees. The Norway spruce did never cross Saltfjellet on its own and the Russian spruce didn't come further than Pasviksdalen south of the Varanger peninsula. All spruces seen in between are put there by man.

Back at Valle I spoke to a man living 500 m west of Valle. The shore there was more gently sloping and at low tide it was sand there. He said it would be okay to go down to the shore an put a canoe in the water there, but the road was very slippery, because it was only a track across the grass fields.