Magical Lofoton
Today we drove 100 miles, stopping for photo stops of the fantastic scenery and cuppa’s! At one cuppa stop we met an English couple from Dorset, we are so rare in these parts we chat for quite a while! We arrived in Bognes as the ferry to the Lofoten Islands was arriving. (No booking required pay as you get on). We had seen some wonderful scenery on our route and even 2 Elks!! The ferry crossing took 50 minutes in glorious sunshine and a lovely view of the islands with its peaks capped in snow. As soon as we docked we drove round the corner to our Bobil park for the night at Loedingen.
So, due to bad weather we had a change of plan! We drove down to Svolvær, regarded as the capital of Lofoten but only received town status in 1996. After visiting the Bobilparking site which was in the middle of a building site we parked in a nearby shopping centre car park along with 6 others for an hour or so visiting the local tourist info and gathering as John would say “more recycling”! Nothing else to write home about ! So we continued our journey south to Henningsvaer. A new Bobilparking area, no facilities and pay online, with a nice view. It managed to stop raining for a while so we had a walk round this fishing village with its imposing bridge over Gimsoystraumen, 840 metres long. We also found a village trail online, Engelskmannsbrygga built 1903 - 04. The London based firm Allen & Hanbury Ltd, produced pharmaceuticals and cod liver oil here together with its oil steam house, now an art gallery. Unfortunately the village smells of drying fish hung everywhere!
The next day we visited the Lofoton Viking Museum at Borg. Highly recommend, the Vikings are all around and will answer your questions apparently they have been waiting for us more than a 1000 years! It has Europe’s largest Viking longhouse ever discovered, excavated & found in Borg being 83m long. We then moved onto Eggum and to the road end at Vestvågøy to see the sculpture “Head” by Markus Roetz. It’s a beautiful classic head resting on a stone pillar, although immobile it still looks like it turns upside down depending on the angle you look at it. Part of the project Artscape Nordland. Here with about 12 more vans we made our home for the night, a very windy and wet one and 6 degrees, but to be expected.
A nice quiet day, with a bit of walking! Before leaving Eggum this morning we had a walk into the village along the beach & old harbour. On the way back we saw an otter, but, you will have to take my word on it as we couldn’t get the cameras out fast enough! We then drove to Uttakleiv where we are staying tonight. Spent the afternoon walking the Old Road to Haukland and back via the tunnel they even provide high vis vests so you can do this safely!
After a VERY windy & wet night at Å, (yes Å), on the main car park of the village, we spent the morning looking around the Norwegian Fishing village and bought cinnamon buns from the old bakery, they have a great reputation and now we know why! We then moved on to Reine to dump & collect more water lovely typical fisherman’s village. Drove onto Fredvang in the hope of a walk, but not to be! We’ve had fresh snow on the mountains today.
Yesterday after another wet night we took the decision to move northwards on the Lofoten Islands, but had a lazy morning whilst John made cake! We moved up to Gomsey peninsular, it dried up! We managed a lovely walk along the white sandy beach! We keep seeing fields of yellow dandelions, I’ve not seen so many for years, also other wild flowers or perhaps weeds!
Today we continued our journey north, beautiful sunny day, 15 degrees!! Tonight we are back at Loedingen near the ferry port where we arrived a week ago. Stunning scenery along the way, including the Lofoten cathedral, largest wooden church on the islands for the fishermen, a couple of tunnel convoys due to road works and another fancy toilet dump!!
