The far north - part 4: back to the Lofoten!

Part 4: back to the Lofoten!

What happened in part 1, 2, and 3: Micha, Yeti, and Jule drove via Stockholm, the Swedish coast, and Inari in Finland to the eastern most part of northern Norway. From here, they were chased by rain to the Northern Cape and to Alta, but then, the clouds disappeared and they saw the midnight sun! With improving weather, they climbed the three most spectacular peaks on the island of Senja before crossing over to the Lofoten.

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We took the ferry from Andørja to Harstad, the largest town on the Lofoten island chain, which is however still a tiny place ;) This is also the new home town of our landlords, so we took the opportunity to visit them and got promptly invited for very yummy raspberry crumble cake. Mmmmh...!! But this was not the only culinary highlight of the day, the next was the BBQ dinner with antipasti and caprese at an overly romantic beach setting topped with a colorful sunset... .


Last time on the Lofoten we focused on hiking and climbing, but this time we made use of the new boulder guide book, our bikes, and the finally good weather, and spent almost all our time with bouldering...


... and biking...




... and more bouldering... .


And then for a change, we also did mixed biking and hiking. We biked up the mountain Ryten on the northern end of the island Moskenesøya until it was too steep and we hiked the remaining meters to the top. The Ryten offers an amazing view over the popular Kvalvika beach and on this day also over a sea of clouds.



The following day we did some more of that and biked 35 km from Reine to the Selfjordhytta. We left the bikes at the hytta and hiked over the shoulder of the mountain Markan to the long and lonely beach of Horseidvika. This beach sits in a small fjord and is so long that it takes about an hour to cross the beach to reach the sea. But once you do, there is a small cliff overlooking the beach and offering the perfect spot for a campsite with sunset view. Unfortunately it started raining just after we pitched the tent and we only had a glimpse of the sunset once the sun peaked shortly through the clouds before disappearing again behind the ocean.


After a stormy night the sun woke us up the next morning and we had a short but nice hike crossing another pass to reach Kjerkfjorden from where we took the ferry back to Reine. Yeti was still waiting in Reine and after a short 35 km drive ;), we also could pick up our bikes again at the Selfjordhytta. We spent the night at the parking next to the Skagen camping with another antipasti BBQ and another fabulous sunset. This time it was even more surreal, as dolphins were jumping and playing in front of the big red fireball that was about to dip into the turquoise sea. What an incredible sight...!
The next day we hiked from the very last town on the Lofoten "Å" to Stokkvika, to check out if there is the possibility of continuing from Draugvike to Stokkvika along the coast. Micha was still searching for a possibility to cross whole Moskenesøya from the most southern tip to the most northern end without taking the road, and he's getting close. If we should ever come to the Lofoten again, we will take the boat from Reine to "Hell" and start hiking until we reach Mulstøa ;)


Sadly, our holidays were slowly reaching an end. But it was a good time to leave as another storm and bad weather was forecasted. We used the last sunny day to do some more bouldering at the beautiful Kvalvika beach. The mountain Ryten at the end of the beach was not covered in clouds and reminded us of our nice bike tour a few days ago. In the evening we had a tasty goodbye-dinner at the Krambua Restaurant in Hamnøya followed by an after-dinner climb to the top of Reinebringen for yet another incredible view of Reine in colorful sunset light.


We rolled onto the ferry form Å to Bodø just when the rain came in, and the last days of the journey back home were pretty much like the part of our holidays further up north - wet and cold, with a dry place for breakfast and dinner being very hard to find... .


We drove south towards Oslo as long as we could until we stopped for the night at a decent roadside parking in the valley of Hessdalen. When we googled the place to find out where we are, we were pretty amazed to read about UFO research and unexplained light phenomenons occurring in this valley. Since 1983 a Norwegian/Swedish UFO research station with live cams is operated and ongoing projects still try to find a convincing explanation for the light phenomenons. There is also serious "Hessdalsphenomena" tourism and "UFO camps" in the valley. But of course - the sky was covered in thick clouds and we didn't spot any lights though the Yeti's glass roof that night. But a very spooky night it was nevertheless.... .
The next morning we continued south and stopped for lunch at the historical town of Røros, the center of which is lined with colorful characteristic 17th and 18th century buildings. The town looks like Pippi Longstocking is coming around the corner any moment, and it does so for a reason. In 1969, one episode of Pippi Longstocking was filmed in Røros. Besides Pippi, the copper mines, and the historical houses, Røros is also well known for its subarctic climate, which lets the temperatures regularly drop to below -40 °C in winter. The coldest temperature ever recorded in the southern half of Norway was recorded here in 1914 with −50.3 °C. Brrrr..... .


From Røros it was only a five hour drive left and we were back home in Oslo.
Being home, we moved all our gear from the Yeti to our apartment with mixed emotions. It was good to have a solid roof again, a warm shower, a dry place to sit, cook, and a warm sofa to watch a movie. But is was also sad that our last big trip in Norway was finished. Although we were not quite lucky with the weather, we brought home lots of valuable and beautiful memories from this very scenic and wild part of Norway.

The End.