Mediocre!

I was up before 6.00 this morning watching the sunrise. I took some pretty mediocre photographs which I don’t think I’m going to be sharing. Anyway, I went back to bed and slept through to 8.30. We were watching the Northern Lights until after midnight last night and then up again at 2.00 am by which time the lights were covering almost the entire sky. We were really pleased to have seen them but also slightly let down too. From pictures I’d seen I expected them to be far more vivid and for there to be far more movement in them. As I said, the photos I took then were a bit disappointing, maybe because I was half asleep and doing everything on auto pilot. Sounds like a good enough excuse to me so I’ll stick with it! You know what? I’m going to put one in any way, it’s probably the only time in my life I’ll get to see the Northern Lights so what the hell if it isn’t the best photo in the world!

We set off this morning in the wrong direction, deliberately! Yesterday I’d seen a location I wanted to photograph and it was 3 or 4 miles back. I didn’t know what the light would be like later in the day so l decided to do it straight away. It didn’t take long to get there and get the shot.

Then we continued on to A. A is actually the name of the small village at the end of the E10. It’s more of a living museum dedicated to the fishing industry in Lofoten really and as such it didn’t take long to walk round. We were soon on our way again heading north up through Lofoten. Next we went to a location  called Ytresand where there is a white sandy beach and mountains all around. I had planned on hiking up 300 meters in height to try to photograph the views but it didn’t quite work out that way. Like an idiot I hadn’t realised there were two trails and the one I chose to follow didn’t go up at all. By the time I realised I was going in the wrong direction and gotten back I couldn’t be bothered starting off on the other one which looked a bit of a grueller to be honest. So the only worthwhile image I got was of these two buildings with grass roofs and the white sandy beach behind. Oh and did I mention there were mountains? Yeah, it’s a bit mountain overkill out here. Whichever way you look, mountains! So apologies for the constant use of the M word.

After my aborted hike we had a bite to eat and a cuppa then headed off to our next destination, Haukland Beach. I’d read on another blog (Our Tour.com) see their blog if you want to see how it should be done. Brilliant! Sorry I digress, I’d read that there is free camping at Haukland Beach and wanted to get there reasonably early (4.00 ish) so as not to find the place full later on. We’ve noticed wild camping places tend to fill up in the early evening as people look for places to settle for the night. We got there at about 3.30 pm and found a space directly facing the beach. The best view you could get. There were lots of people enjoying the apparently unusually nice weather and beach. There was a young guy in a car parked next to us who had just come from swimming in the sea. I said to him I thought he must be mad. I only dipped a finger (literally) in and I could tell it was brutally cold!

One quick photo of the view from where we camped for the night.

Lynne cooked dinner and later at about 7.30 we walked down to the beach to try to photograph the sunset which promised to be spectacular as it was going to be directly over the sea between the mountains. We got halfway along the beach and there were a number of people in the best spot already set up with tripods. One guy in particular was dancing all over the place really owning the scene. He was making a real production number out of taking a photograph. I have to say it got on my tits slightly as it was a nice scene with a small stream running through the sand into the sea and the sun setting just in line with it. However, Mr Spielberg was dominating the whole place running round setting his tripod up in a different spot every 30 seconds or so. He didn’t seem to be with any of the other people there and I wondered if he annoyed them as much as he did me? Probably not. I don’t have too much of a tolerance for dickheads! Eventually he moved off to one side and I managed to nip in and take one shot which I haven’t looked at yet but if it’s any good I’ll include it here. – No, just looked and it’s crap. Mostly because there are footprints everywhere. I wonder who’s they could be. Also the sunset never really transpired as a bank of cloud drifted its way across and snuffed out the sunset. So all in all a nice day marred only by my completely mediocre photography. The inspiration just wasn’t there today. Lets see what tomorrow brings.

Rant over!😠