Just a little detour

So we are back in Oslo and the travelling part of the summer holiday is over. The drive back from Bodø was broken up this time with a stop at a hotel in Hell, which is by Trondheim Værnes Airport and the name has of course appeared lots in marketing. The hotel was thankfully far from being a hotel from hell although the experience of calling to book a room (online booking when you have a dog inevitably ends up with a message telling you to call them) was indeed an experience from hell.

The the call when eventually answered was answered by someone in an overseas call centre who was clearly reading off a script and initially I thought had to be scam but turned out to just be terrible customer service. I was actually positively surprised when we checked in and they were indeed expecting us and with a smile😅.

At breakfast and after a check of the weather forecast I hatched a plan to add another species of butterfly, and what would be my 80th in Norway, by detouring via Trysil to see Silvery Argus (kileblåvinge). I had assumed this would be a long detour but the Map app suggested it would only be 8 minutes longer so it was a no brainer although still required a good sell in to get Jr on board.

The route took us on wide, straight and empty roads through amazing wilderness in Femund and was a much faster and more enjoyable drive than following the main E6 road. The butterfly was only discovered in Norway in 2006 (although could of course have been present much, much longer) and has only ever been found around Trysil close to the Swedish border. For such a scarce species it was very easy to find and numerous on flower rich road verges. I clearly hadn’t done my homework though as especially the males were much smaller than I had expected. It was a very beautiful butterfly with on the males a broad black border to the turquoise on the upper wing.

Underside of a male Silvery Argus. The Norwegian name - kileblåvinge - comes from the white stripe

A very smart butterfly

The females were noticeably larger and probably also identifiable just from this angle although as with most butterflies everything become easier when you see them from below..

The route from the cabin to Oslo with the suggested route to leave Hell where we spent the night

And via Trysil it was only 8 minutes longer. None of the roads are classified as main routes but were a joy to drive

The apparently quickest (although much longer route) was via Sweden although the time is the same as the initial Norwegian only route so I don't really understand why this was suggested. If one is driving further north to for example Finnmark then a route via Sweden and Finland is definitely quicker but I have not seen it suggested for Bodø before. The E6 route to Bodø has become a lot quicker (and safer) due to improvements between Trondheim and Fauske and there are still long sections that that haven't been finished yet but maybe the Swedes have also been improving their roads?