After a restless night where we were buffeted by strong winds most of the night, I went down to the beach at 8.00 this morning. The tide had obviously been in overnight and the sand was pristine and without footprints everywhere. I took one photo from amongst the sand dunes at the back of the beach. I’m including that photo here alongside one I almost forgot from yesterday. I couldn’t resist this small cluster of perfect orange buildings half on stilts in the water. We’ve missed the season for drying fish on the many racks you see all over Lofoten but as I took this photo there was an almost overpowering smell of fish in the air! I dread to think what it would smell like at the height of the drying process.
We were pretty chilled out this morning and didn’t leave Haukland Beach until after 11.00 am. I was hoping to find another beach and having looked on Google earth, decided to head for Straumann which looked from the air as if it would have white sandy beaches much like Haukland. The reality turned out to be somewhat different. We soon realised that we hadn’t seen another motorhome the whole time we were on the road to Straumann. With good reason, theres absolutely naff all there! We drove approximately 15 miles out of our way and promptly did a u turn and came back. We did see some wildlife on our little detour though, as I was driving I could see off in the distance something sitting on a large rock on the distant shoreline. Looking through binoculars it was easy to see it was an eagle of some sort. I took the following picture with a 500 mm lens and the image is very heavily cropped. I’m including it here in spite of it’s poor resolution as I was quite excited at seeing what looks to me to be a Golden Eagle. Of course I have been known to be wrong but thats what it looks like to me.
After we got back on the main road (E10) we decided to drive North and see what we came across, The trouble was I was starting to get the feeling we were on our way out of Lofoten and it felt like we hadn’t done it justice. Part of the problem is that there is so much to see and so much spectacular scenery everywhere you turn that it’s all a bit overwhelming! I seriously don’t know where to go next, and if we go here, won’t we miss that. And so on and so on.
We came to a large town on E10 called Solvaer where Lynne spotted a supermarket so we took the chance to stock up on (expensive) food. We spent the equivalent of £50 on little more than a basket of groceries. I don’t know how their economy works or how much money the average family has to live on but it must be good to be able to pay the prices for food. Having said that, it’s hard to imagine what they all do for a living. Maybe they’re all carpenters because every house or building of any sort really, is built with wood. Then there’s painters, all those houses are painted too. So that’s my answer for the Norwegian economy, Carpeneters and Painters! Job done!! After grocery shopping we went over the road to another shop called Biltema, which translates as Car team, only they don’t just sell stuff for cars, they sell just about anything you could want. You want a lifejacket? they got it. Want copper break lines for your car? they got it. Want little plastic farm animals for your kids? they got em. Brilliant place, I only wish we had something like it in the UK.
After having a good mooch round and buying toilet chemicals and a tub of plastic wild animals (no, not for me!) we were on our way again. We finally found a wild camping place not far from where we camped at Gullesfjordbotn a few nights ago. Then we got talking about whether or not we might be leaving the Lofotens a little too soon, the upshot being that tomorrow the plan is to backtrack a little and go to a place called Eggum. Thats about 2 hours back the way we came. It all depends on the weather really which I’m kind of expecting to take a turn for the worse soon. Time will tell!
Wandering Wildman 