Day 11 - Over The Arctic Circle

The tent was like an oven when I woke this morning. Not a cloud in the sky and so I set off again at the crack of 11 for a day along the coast road. The aim was to get to Bodo and possibly catch a ferry to the Lofoten Islands but my late start didn't help matters much. The road route is broken by 7 ferries some of which take 10 minutes to cross and some take over an hour. Some of the ferries are little things like this one in the photo and some are quite large and would not be out of place on a cross channel route.

Came across some more girls selling excellent waffles and couldn't resist. At each ferry terminal, I kept bumping into the same Norwegian guy so we got chatting and eventually after about 4 ferries, we decided to ride together with the vague plan of hitting Bodo. He was riding to Tromso and that was roughly my plan too.

One one of the ferry crossings, the captain made an announcement that we were now crossing the Arctic Circle and of course everyone rushed to get their cameras. The marker itself is this rather small globe object you can see on the headland over my left shoulder. All rather an anti-climax really.

The word Arctic conjures up visions of Ice & Polar Bears not what I saw at all. There again, The Arctic Circle marks the point at which the Sun does not set for just one day on the 21st June. As it is now Mid July, the midnight sun is still a good way north. The skies and mountains in this part of the world are very stark and forbidding.

So we kept on going, just managing to catch the last ferry to the mainland and were feeling pretty tired. Then we got to this headland and the sun was setting directly due North. It took forever to set, probably 30 minutes....and then it didnt really get dark, just a bright twilight. Laurin decided he had had enough and headed for a campsite. I was strangely awake and kept going till Bodo and just caught the 2am ferry to Mosknes in the Lofotens.

Route 307 miles/14:23 hrs


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