Meeting the Charlie Bloggers in the Arctic

Zagan the motorhome’s shivering! It’s finally cooled off up here in the Arctic (high of 9°C today), although we’ve held off popping the heating on since it’s still 19°C in the van (scratch that, the heating’s just gone on). We’re sat at the side of the small natural bay at Hamn I Senja, free camping and making good use of the free WiFi on offer (N69.41621, E17.16755). OK, let me skip back a couple of days then I’ll come back to Hamn.

Room for a 7m motorhome beside the road to Hamn, Senja, Norway

Shortly after Ju hit Publish on the last blog post, we scoffed breaded cod and haddock for tea. Strange what small things get me buzzing these days, but these wee bits of fish did it for me. Apart from this blog and a few other bits and bobs of ‘work-type’ stuff, our time’s mainly spent on wandering and thinking up stuff to do to enjoy our time on Earth. The highs and lows of real work are gone. It’s Monday morning as I tap this out, for example, which would have meant queues of traffic, chairing 8am meetings and running through the status of endless actions on project plans. Not today, woo hoo! I’m sat with the Arctic Ocean behind me, calm and turquoise, beautiful even under a flat grey sky. Eh? Ah, yes, sorry, gone waffling on again… What I’m trying to say is this: I really enjoyed catching, cleaning, filleting and breading these fish below, it gave me a warm feeling of achievement.

Home made breaded fish: tasted fan-flippin-tastic

The following morning, unpoisoned, we left Mefjordvaer, grabbing some milk (£4.50 for two litres – more than usual as we accidentally bought it from a convenience store/post office/cafe place) and nipping into a freebie service point on our way out of the area. Service points in Arctic Norway are amazingly common and don’t charge, but often don’t have a grey water disposal point, so I’ve taken to using the loo to empty ours into the drains system. They’re all artisan too, as in a local craftsman made them, so they’re all a bit different. I had to hunt around for the access point to the sewer at this one – a handle lifted a metal inner cap on a manhole cover about 5m from the hut.

Service point outside Mefjordvaer. The door to the cabin was locked, kicking off a small hunt-the-drain game

Using the cassette for grey water disposal into awkward or inaccessible drains works pretty well

With Ju at the helm we then plunged into the hillside, as you do up here, ploughing through solid rock before popping out into more giant scenery. Saw-tooth mountains rose above, as the still waters of fjords slid past to one side, then the other as the road cut back and forth seeking a goat path over the slopes.

Motorhome-wide roads on Senja. Ju made good use of the passing places (all nicely marked with a blue M)

Short drives on Senja take a long old time, and we’d a rendez-vous lined up with fellow bloggers Wayne and Angie (check out charliethechucklebuss.com – they’ve been on the road a good while). Pulling off the main road at Steinfjord, we squinted at the satnav as it squeezed us though the town before driving us past a perfectly good exit road right next to the free beach-side parking (N69.45671, E17.34698). Satnav, you piece of crap!

Cracking view from the windscreen at Steinfjord

Zagan and Charlie buddying up on an Arctic beach at Steinfjord

Wayne and Angie have been in touch with us through this ‘ere blog, taking a detour off their route up towards the North Cape to come meet us. Not only did they make the effort to drive over, but they were incredibly generous to us – so much so I’ll need to write a list:

• Angie cooked us up a storm of a veggie chilli. They’ve not eaten meat for decades and with grub this good I can see why!
• Wayne produced cold British beer, carried for a thousand miles, and handed it over for me to get a taste of home
• Wayne unloaded Frankie, their Cub 90 motorbike, for me to have a ride about on. I even managed to get Ju to ride pillion, another tick off the bucket list!
• Wayne handed over graphite powder to treat all our locks with, offering to unleash his tool hit on any problems we had (being an engineer, he’d likely be able to fix anything)
• And a whole host of other kindnesses, a hat for me, a photo with a small plaque made up by Wayne, and sympathy with my hang over the following day.

A load of photos from our time at Steinfjord:

We made up a Daim Bar packet mousse – not bad – we’re also rather enjoying the packet-stash we bought before hitting Norway

Wayne and Angie with Team Zagan!

Inside Charlie the Chuckle Bus, Wayne and Angie’s Burstner Nexxo T 715 G

Wayhey! Ju and Angie taking a dip in the Arctic Ocean!

Steinfjord crab – too small to eat, he went back into the sea along with the mussel attached to his leg!

McEwan’s Champion ale, cold and here in Norway, about £10 a bottle! Tasted divine.

Ju’s now contemplating us getting a wee bike – woo hoo. She says Malcolm, my cracking father in law, will kill me when he sees his photo though…

Cub 90 instruction – there is no clutch, which my tiny brain kept trying to find!

Cast the line out twice in Steinfjord. First time: a load of seaweed. Second time: a mussel! Hungover and managing to only get a single contact lens in, I went out and picked a bucket of ’em, having to dive for each one. They tasted meaty, worth the effort

Final hugs hugged, we wished those guys well on their tour to the top, then to the bottom of Europe – heading for Greece and Turkey (if the country’s back to being stable after the recent coup attempt). I’m jealous as I love Greece and can’t wait to get to Turkey too, one day.  Ju had to drive as I was too hungover to see my feet, doing a great job of squeezing us through tunnels wide enough for a push bike and along roads which Zagan needed most of, although the locals refused to believe it. One chap decided using the passing place demonstrated an unacceptable weakness, opting to edge past us at 0.5mph with his wing mirror a cm from our side. A bit bonkers. After a short foray to see the World’s Biggest Troll (I kid you not) where I slept off the McEwan’s, we rolled off to Hamn.

Not what you want to see in a mile-long tunnel wide enough for a single car: someone coming the other way…

Norwegians have a thing about trolls…

See what I mean – the world’s biggest troll and his wife. Nope, you don’t need to pay to go look, but it’s £15 or some such if you want to go inside him…

Fish farm in the Norwegian Sea on the way to Hamn

The final stretch of road into Hamn goes a bit tight, but only for a few meters before widening out into a parking area complete with your own bin, very handy. Hamn was once a fishing village, claiming to have had the first hydro power plant in the world, and being quite a modern little place for its time. Fishing’s still on the cards here, but it’s mainly tourists now, posing with photos of enormous catches. £100 gets you out on a boat for 2 to 3 hours to try your hand at it. Tempted I am, but not that tempted since I can probably catch an albeit smaller tea from Zagan’s side window. Just had a quick look at the place again and to be honest there is no fishing village any more, Hamn resembles an architect’s concept drawing – all modern grey-painted apartments with decks out on stilts. It looks beautiful still, amidst an archipelago of tiny green and rock islands, but there’s no authenticity to the village.

The road into Hamn

Hamn I Senja. The white building was the fish gutting house, but is now a very nice-looking restaurant serving a buffet lunch and a la carte menu in the evening. 

Mountain backdrop to Hamn

You can don a dry suite and go float about in a maelstrom if you fancy?

Ju’s just heading back to Zagan, thumbs-up, having found a washer-dryer we can use for 60 NOK (about £6). We’re a bit desperate for washing and this wee find means we won’t need a campsite for a while longer. The buffet lunch is 195 NOK too, about £19, so we may well dive in there for an hour or so and tuck in. As in, attempt to eat the lot!

Cheers, Jay

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