Woke up this morning after an awful nights sleep. Lynne woke me around midnight saying she could hear people moving about outside. I got dressed and went out only to find that two motorhomes had turned up late and by the time they were set up they obviously would have made quite a bit of noise. It took me an age to get back to sleep and then I still woke at 6.00 this morning as usual. We got off to a relatively early start as I was expecting a big days driving. We decided to head for Alesund on the coast. Maybe we’ll have better luck with this place. It’ll take at least a couple of days to get there but we have to make our way south anyway. We’ve tried three different places, Kristiansund, Trondheim and Bodø. The only one we succeeded in getting into was Bodø and that was nothing to write home about. The others looked like they would be even worse which is why we didn’t persevere with getting in. I’m hoping Alesund will be better!
‘We drove pretty much all day with a few photographic stops but not as many as I would have liked. It absolutely poured down with rain as we were climbing through an area with autumnal colours everywhere and waterfalls galore. I always use filters if I’m shooting waterfalls and I can’t if it’s hissing down with rain! So frustrating. However as we reached the peak and started to descend, the rain stopped and I was able to do a couple of photos that illustrate nicely the autumn colours. I might add that none of these colours were on display when we passed this way a couple of weeks ago going in the opposite direction.
At about 2.30 pm we arrived back at the Arctic Circle visitor center. We had a wander round just like before and Lynne bought some small gifts. Shortly before arriving at ACVC I commented that we would probably not see any more Reindeer. Within about 2 minutes one ran into the road and I had to seriously test Nellie’s brakes. Just imagine the headline, “Birmingham man kills Rudolph!” It’d look good on the insurance claim though, what caused the collision? a red-nosed Reindeer ran out in front of me from nowhere! He’d given Santa the slip.
At about 3.30 pm we decided to start looking for somewhere to wild camp. There are so many road works going on that we didn’t see any likely places at all. We pulled onto one car park where there wasn’t the usual sign saying welcome to this picnic area, please enjoy using this facility and also please enjoy your onward journey! They might as well just say, have your 10 minutes, have a cup of tea and then naff off! Anyhow, I had a quick walk round and quickly saw that there was a sign saying all of that, but someone had ripped it’s post out of the ground and thrown it down a small embankment where no one could see it. We moved on!
It was 6.40 by the time we found somewhere we could actually stay. No thinly disguised F off signs, just a big hoarding welcoming us to Mosjoen and giving a potted history of the town. So we settled for the night and watched the comings and goings of your average lay-by in Norway. One van pulled up and unhitched his trailer which had on it a skidoo and some other stuff and just left it there. Seems awfully trusting to me, at home I’m pretty sure it would be gone in minutes, in fact they probably wouldn’t wait for you to unhitch it. Various lorry’s pulled in and then out again. I have no idea what they stop for but I’m always glad when they’re gone. We’re supposed to be able to see the Northern Lights again tonight but there’s a thick mist as I write so not expecting too much.
Wandering Wildman 