Sunrise 3:36
We had a calm night in a peaceful meadow near a white sandy beach. Of course, it was raining again, but we were hopeful that weather would improve over the day, since Accuweather promised us 8 hours without rain, not sun, but at least no rain. We followed the road to the sandy beach and took a turn through the half island of Utakleiv. Then we turned back on the road into the direction of Å, which is the last village on the Lofoten.
If you do not know what Lofoten are, it is an Archipelago in northern Norway, and still well into the Artic circle, and it is one of the world’s most northernmost populated regions. It consists of 5 islands, Austvågøy, Gimsøya, Vestvågøy, Flakstadøya and Moskenesøya. The last night we slept on Vestvagøya, the day before we crossed Austvågøy and Gimsøya, and today we were going to visit Flakstadøya and Moskenesøya. So as the days before, we followed the King Olav’s Road along the coastline, jumping from the east coast of the island to the west coast and back, one moment being faced to the ocean, the next, watching high mountains, or better to say the downer 200 meters of the mountains and then the clouds.
The last 7 days northern Norway is covered by a thick layer of clouds, which seldom allows the sun to shine and often sends rain showers. On the way south we stopped in the Nusfjord, this is a side street of E10 on Flakstadøya, and leads deep into the Norwegian mountains, through a deep valley. And what is at the end of the valley, of course a new fjord. Here it was a slim fjord, on the one side there are high walls of stones. There, where the fjords meet the sea, is a small village called Nussfjord. This village was already without inhabitants, because it is so behind gods back, that it was not worth the effort of keeping ways to there, but then they realized, that it is a very interesting place for tourists, so they rebuilt the place. And nowadays it is an Open-Air Museum, where we saw how life was there circa one hundred years ago. We went through the museum, those lovely wooden houses are really nice, I just can’t imagine that it is warm in winter. Unfortunately, it started to rain again while our visit and the mountains were soon covered by clouds.
We decided to drive further into the direction of Å on Moskenesøya. The way leads over some bridges and a lot of tunnels, all the time along high mountains next to the sea. We arrived there after lunch and took a stroll through the village. And believe it or not, but it stopped raining. We took a walk into the mountains behind the village. Staying under a mountain that rises nearly directly in front of you is impressive. Everywhere there are waterfalls coming down the mountain.
In the evening we found a nice camp next to… a fjord (how surprisingly). We found a nice place and the blue sky, for the first time in a very long time, decided to slightly itself later in the evening.
Sunset 22:45 (kilometer 5.842)