Lofoten 2

Welcome to most of you who are entering this holiday posting about Lofoten in Norway at part 2. Stop it! Scroll down and start at part 1!

The Viking Museum in Leknes. I think the horses (real) are Icelandic horses, which are smaller, stockier, and apparently have some 5th gait whereas normal horses only have 4.

One way to scare the enemy was to keep the price sticker on the sword - with Norwegian prices being so high, you really, really want to make the most of that purchase.

What would have happened to that sheep in part 1 if it didn't get off the road sooner - ye olde Viking lamb stew. Quite good actually. As it was roasted on a real fire, and there was a pile of firewood at the door which we needed for our schwenk... each of us left the Viking Museum with a bit more knowledge and a bit more bjork in our jackets than when we came.

With a smile, a fleece jacket and glasses, Tobias made the least convincing viking I ever saw, despite the sword.

Add the helm, and it might be time to think about preparing to get scared. On the right is part of a display on the Bayeaux Tapestry, which is 70m long and describes the politics leading up to, and the Battle of, Hastings in 1066 when the Normans (Viking decendants in France) conquered England.

A reconstructed Viking boat

The beach at Ramberg, advertised as a potential bathing spot, but only missing the mark by about 20o. Here actually we saw some Arctic Terns (my namesake? See 2 posts ago) flying around, but sadly no pic.

Getting the schwenk. Some very, very scared campervan owners and strong winds caused us to move our fire to a long, long way away from the campsite to this secluded small grilling area outside the town limits.

Grillsite

The woman at the campsite was actually really nice about us telling us to move our grill, and bribed us with more firewood. I'm glad she did because we ended up on the Atlantic coast, in a much more scenic and dramatic location which was fantastic for schwenking.

Guys grilled. Ladies lettuced and lit lights.

Our car. A Czech Skoda, which performed really well with plenty of acceleration and despite 5 passegers did alot better than my '95 commodore would have. Apparently because they are now owned by VW, they are the budget VW car, based on the Golf and Audi A3, but 10-20% cheaper and with the same quality. I was impressed.

Nusfjord. The entire fishing town is a living museum.

Road to Reine

The end of Lofoten! This town lies at the westernmost tip of the westernmost island, and has the shortest possible name of Å (pronounced 'Oh!'). But it doesnt start off the phone book because the funny vowels come at the end.

Actually, I've been trying to find a Swedish town name with all 3 extra vowels in it. I haven't succeeded. The closest I have come, which is a a bit of a fudge, is Östra Västerås (East Västerås), which I'm not even sure exists. If anyone out there knows something, let me know. Perhaps in Norway? I will accept lines through o's and chummy ae's instead of dots.

View from Å

After Å it was back to Moskenes for a long ferry ride to Bodø, to drive back a different way to the one on which we came.

More footy, almost at midnight. 1 pt between the side sticks, 6 points for a goal, and...12? 20? 60? for kicking it into another country? It would have been much more humorous to play street cricket, because then instead of '6 and out over the fence', it could be '12 and out over the border'. Or maybe it wouldn't have been so humorous. Remember John Saffran kicking the ball from Israel into Palestine? Now that, was funny...

Almost the midnight sun at Arjeplog

Lofoten 1

Reine, Lofoten

Whenever I have asked for recommendations of palces to visit from Luleå, one constant place name that came up was Lofoten in Norway, so finally, together with a few exchange students (a mostly German invasion), a car was hired, leave taken, and plans made. We left Luleå, at 11 pm on a Fri night, rather than the 8pm as planned, to start the long, long trip across northern Sweden - the boring flat bit. We were prepared for the first 7 hours of driving covering 80% of the distance we would travel acoss Norbotten, then another 7 hours covering the torturous, windy, 20% through Norway and Lofoten. At Kiruna, where the ice hotel is probably just a puddle (with a Tigers coloured football floating around somewhere), some appropriate travelling music hit the radio - AC/DC, and although we were not on the right highway to go to Hell, Norway, to have Thunderstruck ringing out as we roared across the scrub at 2am with reindeer by the side of the road and in full sunshine, was good enough for me.

(And yes, for those of you wondering, trolls are originally Norwegian).

STiL Ski Lodge, Riksgransen

Riksgransen, lit. Kingdom's Border, is where the mountains are. I guess the during border making the Norwegian mountain trolls made sure Norway kept the mountains which extend all the way to the water at the Atlantic ocean, (ie. the fjords), and Sweden got most of the flat stuff that was not particuarly troll-friendly eastwards to the Baltic Sea. The northern skifields are here, and though it was possible to climb up and ski even at midsummer, we decided to just sleep as it was 4am. Thankfully there was a good supply of large, black plastic rubbish bags to use as curtains - being relatively unused to summer use, it was not equipped with any attempt to block the infernal sun with decent enough curtains.

David, a Colombian, on the ferry between Melbu and Fiskebøl

View from 1st campsite at Sandsletter

The scenery was impressive even without the sun; being mountainous and northern and coastal means the weather is very temperamental. Over the 3 days there it was overcast with occasional showers, but sometimes the sun broke through, and then the views became really spectacular.

The roads are often at the very edge between mountains and ocean. I swear though, that the mountains rising out of the sea reminds of the islands King Kong called home.

A cool Norwegian roadsign suggesting that modern seat belts are a better alternative to the tradition of using small children as seat restraints.

Another common Norwegian sight - grass on the roof. Aside from the obvious thermal insulation benefits, I cant really think of why this came about. Or how they are mowed. Lawnmower+gravity=emergency department via helicopter.

David gets ready to schwenk

The schwenk is a german grill unique to the southeast region of Saarland, where Christina and Tobias come frome. A tripod with a grill that hangs from a chain, adjustable in height, means that optimum, and even heating can be obtained my keeping the schwenk swinging and rotating over the fire to remove hotspots. Apparently there are even motorised versions, but this one was jury rigged on the cheap, but works just as well.

Lena, a German who was moved to a small village outside of Jokkmokk 11 years ago by her nature loving parents.

A rainbow! Perhaps the next picture (with less level adjusting in Photoshop) shows just how bright it was - the brightest rainbow I have ever seen. There was also a 2nd rainbow, weaker double refraction, to the right of the main one.



David proves his boast after the sunny night at Riksgransen - he can sleep without probs anywhere, anytime. After a short walk at midnight, he just plonked himself down on the sofa and that was that for the night.

Christina. Fishing. Obviously.

We took a rowboat out into the fjord to try and catch some cod. We had borrowed a range of rods from little hand lines through to boat reels and long, long beach rods. And caught nothing. Not a bite. It took us about an hour to find combination of people who could overcome the current and get us out into the deep of the fjord, and then we had little time to actually fish before rain and our departure time kicked in. Disappointing. Afterwards we were told seals were recently in the area and may still be around, scaring away all the fish.

Didn't catch a marmæl either. We went to the Lofoten Museum, all about fishing. Fishhooks from the 1700's, 1800's, 1900's... I would have rather gone fishing, but I thought maybe we could have learned something. About fishing.

Henningsvær

A quick stop here at the so-called "Venice of Lofoten". A name totally based on the fact there is one, large, steep bridge kinda like the Ponte Real that links it to the main island. But that is still a stretch. Rain meant we couldn't walk around the whole town, because of the lack of bridges... Actually one of the dumbest things I saw there was the famous bridge - it is only wide enough for 1 way traffic! Now I don't know much about bridge-building, but my instincts tell me that although a bridge is expensive, the cost doesnt scale with width, so making it say 5m wide shouldnt be more expensive than making it 3. But it does make the trip more across more interesting.

The villages in Lofoten were established basically because of the very rich cod fisheries. Dried salted cod was, and still is, the main product, and even the average family home will have a rack for drying the family meal.

Some big families in Norway...

Midnight at Brustrandas - yes, again, the midnight sun!

Kick to kick. Guess when? At midnight of course!

More footy - working on the dropkick, shortly before some campervan folk reminded us that most people try to sleep at midnight...

These guys were not happy at all to be disturbed by us trying to use their road. Especially the one on the left, which in very un-sheep-like behaviour did not follow the others off the road, but just stared us down before leaving on his/her own time.

Yes, I was really there! So was Tobias, the only one of the gang you haven't met yet.