After Arriving at the ferry at 2am and getting straight on, I found 3 seats and tried to get some shuteye for the 3:15 crossing. It sort of worked but I arrived just after 5am and felt pretty out of it. The terminal at Mosknes is a loading ramp. That's it. No wake up juice to be had. I did consider setting up camp and getting a few hours sleep but couldn't find a spot so decided to get going and start in the last town in the Lofotens, called A. Short & sweet and easy to fit on a postcard. I believe you pronounce it like "Urr"
The Lofotens were/are famous for Cod fishing. The Cod come from the Barents sea to the north and spawn on the waters around the Lofotens between January & March/April. The fishermen lived in little shacks on the shore or built on stilts by the waters edge. Apparently the red paint was once made from fish oil and there seems to be just two common colours, red and orange. All the old fishing villages are festooned with drying racks for the fish and it is pretty stinky. I got right up under one of the racks to take look and they dry the heads separate from the bodies. Not sure why.
The Islands are about 100 miles long and have a sort of backbone of a ridge of mountains. The whole things is strung together by this incredible piece of road engineering that hops, skips and jumps between the little islands near the tip with small bridges like these in the picture. The bigger islands are linked by tunnels under the sea several kilometres long.
About half way up the Islands it started to rain (about 10am) and has done so all day. The Lofotens were not showing their best today. I feel that I have seen so much stunning scenery that I have become a bit dulled to the beauty of the place. A sort of overload.... I decided to cut my losses and bypass Narvik centre and head as far north as I could get. Too wet to take pictures. Tonight I am about 400km from Nordkap and will get there tomorrow and then start the journey south through Finland.
Route 432 miles/17:38hrs
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Cool Cod. I would say get a decent night's sleep, but I don't suppose a decent night lasts long up there. R.
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