I peaked a little early last night. Had I not been in such a hurry to publish yesterdays blog I would have been able to include these two photos. The first is of the clouds turning red as the sun went down the other side of the hill and the second is the mountains in the opposite direction turning red too as the descending sun hit them. The disappointing thing was that when we left this morning we passed a camping place within 500 meters where there would have been all round views of snow-capped mountains lit up by that red sun. Still, we didn’t know at the time so it’s too bad.
Anyway, onto todays blog. We’re back on the road in Norway and loving it. The contrast between Norway and Sweden is quite extraordinary. Almost the minute we were back in Norway we were surrounded by mountains again and the driving was far more entertaining. Like I said, I was slightly annoyed to find that if we had driven 500 meters more last night we would have been surrounded by stunning views. However, enough said about that.
So we set off this morning heading for Narvik, which was a little out of our way but I had been online and found a place where we could get LPG, the reason being, we weren’t sure how many nights we might end up wild camping in the Lofotens. We were in Narvik in a little less than an hour and it was noticeable how different it looked with the sun shining. Previously we’d driven through on a grey and rainy day and we’d both commented on how grim it looked. We easily found the LPG station where the attendant was very helpful and spoke good English like most of the Norwegians we’ve met. Soon we were on our way again happy in the knowledge that we were unlikely to run out of gas while we travelled through the Lofotens. We had to drive back the way we had come for 20 minutes or so but were soon on our way on the E10 which runs almost the full length of the Islands. We soon came to what I had thought might be our next stop. I’d found this place on an app and it said there were free services, ie, camp the night with free electric. Yes, you guessed it, too good to be true! It looked like a boat yard and there were no other motorhomes there. Well with free electricity you would have thought it would be packed. So, another wild goose chase. To be fair we did empty the toilet cassette and top up on drinking water so it wasn’t a total waste of time and didn’t take us far out of our way anyway. While we were sat in the van about to drive away I saw movement from the corner of my eye and immediately thought it was a rat but when I looked again I soon realised it was a weasel. He jumped out of the grass right in front of us and skipped off till he reached a tractor parked to the right of us. Then he disappeared. How nice though to see some wildlife that wasn’t splattered at the side of the road!
It was a beautiful sunny blue sky day and we soon arrived at a campsite which I’d found online. The Gullesfjordbotn Caravan Park was on the edge of a fjord. I only realised it was a fjord when the tide went out shortly after we arrived. We chilled out for an hour and then decided to go out for a walk. It turned into a hike and not a particularly easy one at that but the reward was this next photo. We had walked and climbed for probably an hour over alternating rocky and boggy ground to get to this point. I used a 6 stop ND filter to achieve a 2 second exposure to slow the water down and a 3 stop ND Grad filter to stop the sky burning out.
The hike back was slightly quicker and we settled down for the night. We had a beautiful view of the fjord until about 7.30 pm which was when some cretinous fat Norwegian turned up and dumped a caravan right next to us. He obviously had every right to be there but he parked the caravan in such a way that it blocked out a good 60% of the view we’d had previously! I spent the next 20 minutes quietly seething and then thought, ah what the hell, it’ll be dark in an hour anyway! Still, it never ceases to amaze me how thoughtless people can be.
Later I gave myself a haircut and trimmed my beard. I was afraid I’d started to look like Uncle Albert from Only Fools and Horses.
Now, as I write I’m reminded of that classic British trait where we moan incessantly and then roll over the minute you’re confronted with the object of your grievance. I’ve just been outside and the people with the caravan both said a very pleasant hello, and my response? As cheerful a hello as I could muster! How spineless is that?
Wandering Wildman 