Å to Haukland, Bouncing About the Lofotens

Zagan the motorhome is, in a change to our scheduled programme, hooning up and down the Lofotens like a deranged, wide-eyed, island-mad van-monkey. We’ve been down to Å, the village right at the southern tip of the islands to meet our great friends Chris, Tina and daughter Libby, and have since bounced our way back up to the fabulous, free-camping white sand and blue ocean beach at Haukland (N68.19924, E13.52961).

Free overnight motorhome parking at Haukland

Five coaches have just arrived and a hundred or two folks have rolled out of them, flowing out in the rain and onto the beach, arms thrusting forth a hundred cameras, and are now flowing back into the coaches. Identical pink badges on every coat suggest there’s a cruise ship in port somewhere on the islands. We’re sat watching this small spectacle feeling comfortable with our chosen approach to life and to travel; we’re thinking we’ll sit out the rain and hopefully have a BBQ tonight on the beach, maybe stay a couple of days. Sweet.

The gang, re-united in the Lofotens!

So, where have we been? OK, we headed the 90 min run down to Å once we got word from Chris (who we first met in San Sebastian, and was later instrumental in securing our enduring freedom) those guys had made a late ferry from Bodø and were sleeping in the free car park in the village. The landscape on the drive south is quite beautiful, a joy to roll through. That said, all up-talking of the Lofotens (I’m as guilty of this as anyone) has built up the islands to the point I was subconsciously expecting something akin to the eye-watering (and entirely computer-generated) floating islands from Avatar’s world of Pandora. Obviously, since that landscape defies the laws of physics, the Lofotens couldn’t compete, but here in the real world (if you can call what we’re doing ‘real life’?), they’re about as close as we’re ever going to get to Pandora.

The Lofotens: almost Pandora

In the car park we also bumped into Sarah and Tabatha, a British mum-and-10-year-old-daughter duo who are taking a year out to travel Europe in a motorhome. Hats off to ’em, they set off a few weeks ago and are already up here, in the northern edge of the world, getting some adventure in! After a brief chat about some water-related problems with their van (the filler cap had removed itself at some point, and the grey water emptying point was a complete pain to get to), we waved ‘bye, seeing ’em a couple more times as we ambled back north.

The other main thing I remember of Å was cod heads. The stock fish drying racks Lofoten’s famous for are almost entirely devoid of honking fish carcasses at the moment, but we got lucky/unlucky in Å, as small teams of men were just in the process of cutting down tonnes of cod heads and loading them into a waiting lorry. The heads, roughly the size of a dog’s noggin and tens times as toothy, are apparently very welcome in Nigeria, and we’ve made a mental note to eat only bags of crisps if we ever make it there.

Cod head harvesting in Å, Lofotens

Dried cod heads (stockfish) in Å, Lofotens

From Å we headed for Reine, which was just beautiful (N67.93498, E13.09368). The price to sleep there was less pretty. New signs requested we deposit 200 NOK to stay from 3pm to 8am, and another 100 NOK to stay after 8am. £30 for 24 hours in a car park – only Nordkapp has put its hand out for a more outrageous amount of money to park, although thinking about it, Tromsø came close. That said, Reine had, as well as a very eye-catching view, the world’s most picturesque motorhome service point, which weirdly was completely free of charge despite the town’s enormous stationary-tax.

Overnight motorhome parking in Reine, Lofotens

The Most Beautiful Motorhome Service Point, in the World?

Fun times emptying our toilet cassettes!

After a night in Reine, a few hours of which were spent spectacularly failing to catch any fish for tea, we all took a walk down to the start of a hike up the mountain over looking the town. Reaching the start of the walk, we looked upwards and with a collective nod, walked off. The view from up there must have been stupendous, but for a 3 year old, two whippets, my dead legs (I’ve finally been out for a run) and Tina’s dodgy ankle, the vertical scrabble didn’t look appealing. Maybe next time, which for us could be in about 3 days as we’re heading back south to get the ferry to the mainland!

A window in Reine, Lofotens

Sign on a camping-fishing-hiking-anything-done-outside shop in Reine, Lofotens

Us two sunning ourselves in Reine

The Lonely Planet once voted Reine the most picturesque place in Norway

Next up, Nusfjord, via a magical mystery tour around Flakstadøy Island, finding various potential sleep-spots peppered with ‘No Camping’ signs, no doubt erected by locals frustrated with the influx of a hundred thousand motorhomes space-hogging each summer. A campsite alongside a fantastic white-sand beach almost tempted us in but at £21 (without electricity) to sleep in a field, and knowing Haukland was no less pretty and completely free, we decided to pass. The lay-by we were parked in at the time had the most charming way of telling us we weren’t welcome to sleep with a sign which read: “Welcome to Nordland. This is a rest area, not a campsite. Please enjoy your short stay here before moving on. Enjoy the rest of your journey.” Nothing about staying 4 hours only, nothing about no overnighting, nothing about not sleeping. But the message was clear enough: we weren’t welcome to stay, and with a campsite in sight, not that surprising.

The Lofotens are peppered with sweeping bridges like this

Big 10 this is Rubber Duck, we got us a convoy!

Beautiful warming sunshine yesterday

Beach near Flakstead

Mummified old house on Flakstadøy

At Nusfjord the road ends at the village, launching us up a steep hill at the end into the parking area like a couple of Harrier Jump Jets (N68.03438, E13.28260). New signs are up: 150 NOK overnight parking. £15 for a few hour’s kip, plus another £5 each to look at the village. A Norwegian website I’d read had an article saying a developer owns most of the village and was looking to recoup money for renovation work. There was talk of a tall fence being built around the town, to remove the voluntary nature of the 50 NOK-a-look tax. The article quoted a local saying something along the lines of ‘what a load of BS, they’re just out to make money’.

After 6pm the pay booth was closed and since no fence has yet been built, we had an unhurried look about the place. A kind of combined museum village, with new-built wooden summer cabins (£230,000 each if you fancy one), tourist fishing boats and a couple of honest-to-cod commercial fishing boats. An odd place, pretty, authentic and entirely unauthentic (sea-facing hot tub in a hard-working Arctic fishing village?), depending on how you squinted at it. I went fishing, lost a lure and got no bites, so I was feeling a tad grumpy about it all until no-one collected the 150 NOK parking fee…

Nusfjord, where flat land has to be fashioned with stilts (spot the motorhomes)

Fishing boat in Nusfjord

Chris scaring the bejesus out of a cod head

Nusfjord: a wee bit film-set

Old ad for tobacco on ye-olde general store (closed but we could see the wild-west look of the supplies on wooden shelves through the window) in Nusfjord

This morning we woke to find the ambitious, crisp clear blue sky replaced with a miserable, grey-faced cry-baby. A short dash out for Charlie to take his morning constitutional resulted in a wet-dog ambience within Zagan as we headed back north. With wipers slapping we drove now-familiar roads, tunnels, bridges and tracks back to Haukland, finding space between two rented Norwegian motorhomes on the premium-space front row facing the beach. The Internet’s dog slow (it’ll take a couple of hours to upload the photos on this page), but the heating’s on and the forecast’s for decent weather later on. Chillin’ time. Ju’s checked our food stash too, and we’re good for a few more weeks yet!

Cheers, Jay

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