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.