Today Basil’s odometer announced we have travelled 10,000 miles since we left home in February. Apart from a blown fuse and, more recently, an intermittent fault with the airbag warning light, the Fiat part of Basil has performed flawlessly. In the Hymer part of the rig we’ve had one blown LED light and that’s it. Pretty good performance all round. The human part of the team, combined with SatNav, may have nearly demolished an entire Greek village, but we’ll brush that under the proverbial carpet. Well done team. In the immortal words of Old Mr. Grace* you’ve all done very well.
Today we spent our time driving to the Lofoten Islands. In a now familiar scenario the day started with very low cloud, not mist today. We stopped in the last major settlement before the Lofotens, Sortland, to top up Basil’s diesel tank and buy our cheapest Norwegian loaf of bread so far, a mere 25 NOK (€2.70)!!
The rest of the journey to the Lofotens was pretty spectacular by any standard, except that of Norway, by whose criteria it was fairly mundane! Just some lovely mountains and bleak moorland, but no fjords! There were plenty of tunnels though. Today, because we were on more major roads, the tunnels at least had room for two vehicles to pass, but I wish the lighting was better and the passing of an HGV causes Basil and I to collectively pull our tummies in.
No sooner had we started the official tourist route, than we turned off it. Lonely Planet suggests that the minor road which tracks the northern coast of the first Lofoten island, Austvagoya, is even prettier. The first thing we noticed were lots and lots of lovely beaches. None of them had parking places so I suppose they are not used for recreation in this isolated location, but they looked beautiful in the emerging sunshine, their pale colour contrasted against the ubiquitous turquoise sea. One of the beaches was full of cows. Neither of us have ever seen such a sight before and probably never will. It was if they were all on holiday!
Who knew cows liked a beach holiday!
We began to get glimpses of why the Lofoten Islands are so praised. The mountains are slightly higher than we had found on Senja Island, but the fjords are same beautiful colour. Stopping places on the side road were few and far between, which limited my photographic opportunities. The road was mostly single track, so stopping for a photograph would block the road.
Fjord and Mountains Austvagoy
Eventually we found a layby to pull in for lunch with a lovely view over a fjord. After lunch we got our chairs out and relaxed in the sun. There was a temptation to stay for the night, but I saw there was a relatively cheap campsite only 10 miles further on and we need to do our weekly laundry.
View from our lunch stop
Lunch stop
So we stopped at Sandletta Camping (68.224428, 14.498316). It’s a reasonable site and at 200 NOK (€21.60) plus 50 NOK if you want electricity, it is cheap for Norway. We were annoyed to find showers were an extra 10 NOK. It is the first site on the entire trip which has charged for showers separately and it affects us disproportionately because of Sarah’s long hair. Sarah reckons it takes about 15 minutes to wash her hair and at 10 NOK for 4 minutes that would be an expensive shower. I use Basil’s shower all the time, but Sarah prefers a proper one for her hair, but today she has saved us a small fortune by blessing Basil’s facilities – he’s very proud.
Laundry has also been completed and is hanging out to dry. That means probably another six nights wildcamping, if we can find spaces on the crowded Loftens, before we need to pay for camping again.
* In the old BBC TV sitcom “Are You Being Served” the old owner of the department store in which the comedy is set, Mr. Grace, pops out of his office every now and again to tell his staff “you’ve all done very well”.