Norway From Oulu we took a pretty direct route North West up to The Lofoten Islands. En route we spent a few nights wild camping near beautiful crystal clear lakes but, as we’d been warned, we were not alone there… July sees the uprising of hordes of biting flies. I’m not talking about small midges or the friendly mosquitos we encountered elsewhere in Northern Europe… these flies are on steroids and they will stop at nothing to bring you down! I’m talking about horseflies, deerflies, elk flies or whatever you want to call them… hundreds of them. We could not leave Beni for a few days without being on edge and constantly wary. Wherever we stopped it was only a few seconds before they would start landing on the windows and elsewhere on Beni. Luckily Beni is pretty tough and could cope with this, allowing us to remain safe inside! Our only respite on this leg of the trip was a night spent in the mountains where we could enjoy the scenery and explore without the requirement for chainmail armour. We were delighted upon arrival at our first stop in The Lofoten Islands to see that there were no horseflies there! We were in the sleepy fishing village of Sto, a great start to our time on the islands! Lovely red fishing huts and small fishing boats lined the harbour front and we completed the 15km ‘Queen’s Walk’ one day providing us with wonderful views over surrounding landscape. On our final night here the skies were clear and we witnessed that once in a lifetime thing… the midnight sun! The 24 hours daylight was really playing with our body clocks though! From Sto we drove to the towns right at the tip of The Lofoten Islands (Hamnoy and Å), this area made Sto seem pretty unremarkable! The glimmering sea gives rise to huge rocky cliffs, these are punctuated with the odd deserted sandy beach or quaint fishing village. This is what we’d come here to see! We spent a good few days in this area exploring the stockfish factories, beaches, and fitting in a bit of fishing! The fishing was brilliant although I nearly destroyed Beni trying to cook two large Pollock that were far too big for the appliances we had at our disposal! We could travel no further through the islands by road so hopped on a ferry and headed out to the Island of Rost. Until this point we’d been blessed with incredible weather but whilst on the island we were enveloped with sea mist, it was rather eerie! The island is only 3 miles long so we’d seen most of it in the first 15 minutes or so! It felt very remote there and it was great spending a night camped amongst the fishing huts! The following morning we took the ferry across to the mainland and spent a few days covering the long miles south to Dovrefjell National Park, home of the Musk Ox! The weather was once again wonderful so I hiked up into the mountains to photograph the awesome beasts! Our final stop was more of a ‘fizzling out’ than an ‘out with a bang’ finale to Norway, it was Oslo. A perfectly nice city but we didn’t find it too exciting compared with other cities on offer in Europe or indeed the Nordic countries specifically. There’s a nice water front with the futuristic opera house and plenty of cafes and restaurants to choose from but nothing that made us go ‘wow’. Well, apart from the price for a beer at around £8, wow! Perhaps if you were only visiting Oslo and were not aware of the wonders further north or west you’d be content with the city but with the memories of Norway’s greener side fresh in our minds we were pretty underwhelmed. Nevertheless Norway ranks very near the top for this whole year of travelling. It’s a real adventure with plentiful scenic wild camping locations, wonderful nature and landscapes as well a lovely people, food and fishing! We will certainly be returning to see more! D, L & Beni x
Posted on: Wed, 06 Aug 2014 12:01:46 +0000