The day started with a thick mist which quickly burnt off to reveal another beautiful sunny day. We topped up the water before leaving Gullesfjordbotn and were back on the road by 10.00 am. Once again we were passing through stunning mountainous scenery. The Lofotens weren’t going to let us down I could tell. The sun was blazing down and it was very hot through the windscreen. It wasn’t long before we went through the second longest tunnel we’ve come across at something like 6.4 kilometers. The weird thing about all the tunnels in Norway, and there’s lots of them is that you’re surrounded by all this spectacular scenery which is kind of like a sensory overload, then you enter a tunnel which by comparison is more like sensory deprivation!
We hadn’t been travelling long when we saw a dead otter at the side of the road. I thought that was really sad. We see roadkill all the time and never really give it a second thought, but when you see something as unusual as an otter that’s properly sad! It was only a couple of weeks ago that I saw my first ever wild otter coming out of the fjord at Geiranger.
I stopped for one photo along the way when I saw a mountain perfectly reflected in the fjord or lake, in this instance I’m not sure which. It turned out to be a beautiful picture though without using any filters, just the histogram to set up the exposure!
We stopped off at a place called Leknes where there was a very modern shopping mall. We had a quick mooch round and then went into the nearest supermarket to get some food supplies. It didn’t take long to decide not to bother when we saw the prices. The equivalent of almost £5 for a loaf of bread seemed ridiculous to me. Suffice it to say, I’d rather go hungry! So I didn’t see the point in hanging around and apparently, I was guilty of looking at my watch! So in my thoughtlessness I missed the obvious fact that Lynne wanted to have a mooch around the shop. Needless to say, words were had and I came out of school with a “could do better” mark. Well I’ll definately try next time! Sorry miss!!
Eventually we carried on in stony silence (for a while) and finally arrived in Reine which is almost as far south as you can go on the E10. By luck we found a perfect place to camp overlooking the town and mountains. We were a bit unsure about whether or not we could camp there until we got back from a walk, to find a German family settling down for the night right behind us. There were no signs saying no camping so there we stayed.
I went out to shoot the town from up the hill at blue hour with varying degrees of success. The following photos are essentially the same view with different light and techniques. Although come to think of it, the first one wasn’t blue hour at all but was taken just after we got there.
As I was about to hit publish we got side tracked by a faint sign of the northern lights over the town of Reine. At first just a faint hint of shapes in the sky but as time went on more and more vivid. Lynne and I watched and waited for more than an hour during which time I managed to get some shots with a 6 second exposure. The longer time obviously intensifies the light and this was the result.
Wandering Wildman 