The Last of the Lofotens

We are currently sitting on the Nordlandsekspressen Hurtigbåt, a fast passenger ferry that runs from Svolvaer back to Bodø, on the mainland. Tomorrow, we fly to England, so this is the end of our time in Norway.

Since leaving John and Anne's, the rain and clouds went away and stayed away. We have had several amazing days cycling and hiking. We biked south, knowing we had two days of riding to get to Svolvaer, but four days to do it in. Perfect. By early afternoon on Friday, we reached the first of many detours we planned on making, a dirt road heading into the middle of an island. The main road skirts the coast, but we decided to go south on this road. It was so small it didn't even show up on google maps, and in fact ran off the edge of our paper map too! But it looked like it was almost certain to connect up at the other end. 

The first part of the road brought us alongside a very sparsely populated fjord. From this fjord to the other side of the island, a sign warned us that the road was closed. We decided to head on anyway though, as closed to cars doesn't mean closed to bicycles!

Some way into the closed section (which was a bit rutted, but otherwise still rideable) we happened upon an enormous raspberry patch!

Happy Lucy!

This is just what we took with us...we ate while we picked, and also had delicious berries with yoghurt in order to free up the container for more berries!

A short way beyond berry-heaven, we reached the border of Nordland district and Troms district (Nordland includes the Lofotens, while Troms includes the country further north, including the city of Tromsø). Here there was an actual barrier across the road, but we went around the side. The road quality got worse, in places we were pushing our bikes, but the scenery was worth it! Our own sunlit glacial valley, spectacular.

It was late afternoon at this point, and certain camping opportunities can't be passed up. We pitched our tent just on the other side of the small stream running down the middle of the valley. The water is so fresh up here, you can drink straight from the stream, and it's still probably cleaner than what you get at home!

The next morning the trouble started. Lucy got a pinch flat (a symptom of rough roads, skinny tires,  extra weight on the rear wheel, and perhaps not keeping enough pressure in the tire). We fixed it, and were in a hurry to move on because we wanted to catch a 2:00 ferry from the town of Kaljord. We had a long descent and got back to sea level the same time as we got back to pavement. The riding was nice, sunny, and on a road that dead-ended at the ferry, so without much traffic. Unfortunately, Lucy's tire had a slow leak, probably acquired in the process of putting the new tube in. Since we were pressed for time, we just stopped to pump it every hour or so. 

Arriving in Kaljord with plenty of time, we looked at the ferry schedule, and found it different to the one we had seen online. Double checking the website which was still loaded on Lucy's phone, we found the page we had looked at was from 2011! According to the schedule, the ferry no longer went to either of the two towns that would have worked for us, only to a larger port further north (the way we had come!). There was a small store at the ferry port, and Lucy went to talk to the cashier. Thankfully, that was only one of the ferry lines, the other did indeed go where we needed. After lunch, we got on the ferry.  We told the ticket man we wanted to go to Digermulen. He was surprised because from the first ferry stop, Hanøy, you can bike to Digermulen, but we wanted to take the ferry out and then ride back. He chatted with us in somewhat halting English, asking about our trip, saying that he had worked on cargo ships up and down both coasts of North America, that he had even been engaged to an American girl at one point. At this point he said that he was a very nice guy and the extra leg to Digermulen was very expensive and he would only charge us for the leg to Hanøy. No one takes the ferry for the second leg really, because it's quicker to drive, but they have to do it anyway because at Digermulen they do a short leg to an island across the fjord. 

So we sat on the upper deck in glorious sunshine, enjoying a private boat ride down the fjord while fixing Lucy's flat, again. Some tires are harder than others to get on and off. This one was really tight. Unfortunately, when we tried pumping the tire, this one had a pinch flat too! In addition, the pressure was mounting. We had just used the last patch in Adie's patch kit, only to discover that the one Lucy had brought had been empty from the start! So we had two already patched tubes, and thus, two more tries before we were really in trouble. At this point, Adie took over tire changing duties. While pumping up the tire, the pump started to feel very stiff, then very loose, and stopped pushing air out entirely. We had had issues with the pump back at Toivo farm in Finland, and Adie had had to take the pump apart and clean the internals to get it working again. So Adie took it apart, cleaned it, put it back together, and started pumping. Same thing, very stiff, then stopped pumping. Bummer. Whose idea was it to only bring one pump? Adie's, of course! Adie took the pump apart once more, because it seemed like the problem was a stretched out o-ring, and maybe an o ring elsewhere in the pump could be switched out. However, taking it apart this time, it died for good. The small but vital plastic piece that actually pushes the air broke off where it joined the shaft handle. Real bummer. 

At this point our friend the ticket man came over and saw we still hadn't fixed it. We explained the problem with the pump, and he offered to go fetch the ferry's chief engineer, to see if he could help!

He came up and said he had an air pump in his car at Digermulen, but we explained that it was a different valve type from a car and likely wouldn't work. Adie also realized that the little adaptor which would have let us use any pump was in his other patch kit, on his bike back in the US. So the engineer took the wheel to the engine room, and came back a few minutes later with the tire pumped, but not really enough, explaining that it was tricky with the valve. He was a really nice guy, and said if we were biking back up the fjord that evening, in his village about 10km away there was going to be music and dancing and we should stop by! The wheel was rideable, but not with the full weight of panniers, and pavement only.  We got out at Digermulen, and shuffled food and gear between ourselves to lighten Lucy's panniers. Then we headed off on a hike, with a sick feeling of foreboding about the tire situation. 

The hike was lovely; it definitely pays to go up! As John and Anne explained when we asked whether they had ridden much in the Lofotens, by kayak and on foot are really the best ways to explore.

And we even found a nice mountain lake to swim in after the sweaty ascent! 

We camped in a field at the base of the trail, and the next morning woke up to bad news. Lucy's tire was flatter than the night before, too flat to ride. We walked the short way back to the ferry terminal to fill up with water and use the toilet. The ferry was in, and we bumped into our friend the ticket man. He said the chief engineer would be back in 45 minutes, and we were welcome to ride the ferry back up if we wanted. We decided to change the tire one last time, and see if they could inflate it on the boat again. By the time Adie had changed the tube, a Norwegian couple, who owned the small shop at the terminal, biked up. We asked if they happened to have a bike pump. neither really spoke English, but the man nodded, and biked off! Ten minutes later, he was back, and pulled out two pumps. One was a car pump and wouldn't fit, the other was a funny old pump but seemed to screw on ok. We started pumping, but before the tire was fully hard, the pump was leaking. Not quite up to road bike tire pressures. By pinching the tube of the pump where it leaked, we got the pressure high enough to ride. After thanking the man gratefully, he refused to take the pump back, saying "take, take." The Norwegians are such nice people! Adie also realized we could improvise patches using the glue from the kit plus some spare bits of inner tube we were carrying. So our dire situation was averted! 

We biked back up the fjord, which was beautiful and the road almost empty (hooray for dead-end roads!). At the head of the fjord there was a hike we had identified while at John and Anne's. We had lunch then ditched the bikes and headed up an obvious track. This turned out to be only a track from building a tunnel, with no sign of the trail up the mountain. It looked like the trees soon gave way to grass, so we decided to bushwhack, in the hope that we might spot the trail further up. We didn't. There may not have been one at all. It was hard work. Very steep, uneven ground, wading and stumbling through plants (which only looked like grass) that, with the slope, were almost chest height.

The view was ok, though.

Eventually the slope got even steeper, well over 45 degrees, and very wet. Lucy's recently broken toe was letting her know that it felt abused. After scoping out descent options, we turned back the way we came, slowly, slowly. Back at the tire track, we looked up and realized we had only gotten about a third of the way up!

We got back on the bikes and headed back towards Svolvaer, which necessitated cycling an undersea tunnel three and a half kilometers in length. Ewwww. We got the lights and jackets out, as the tunnels are dark, cold and very noisy. Thankfully there was a sidewalk, and after a steep descent and an equally steep climb we reemerged into dazzlingly bright sunlight. After the tunnel, we chose the long way round to Svolvaer, as we still had all of the next day. Excellent decision. Empty roads, beautiful fjords, and an epic campsite. 

 

We had this beach all to ourselves for the night!

And finally were up late enough, and facing the right way, to see a Lofoten sunset! (At 10pm.)

In the morning we continued towards Svolvaer, hoping to do a hike at some point. Not many are shown on our map, but we identified one. We couldn't find the trail, and after doubling back, we saw a car parked next to what looked like a trail. It wasn't in the right place to be the one shown on our map, but we took a chance. Excellent decision. The trail rose continually, and the view just got bigger and bigger. We met the hikers whose car we had seen and asked where the trail went. The man pointed up and said first there is trail, then on the ridge, just rock. We continued up, snacking on arctic cloudberry, a prized berry found only above the tree line in northern Scandinavia. They taste better in jam than fresh, but they were very juicy, with an almost buttery flavor. Adie liked them better than Lucy. 

We didn't know how far the trail would go, but thought things were going pretty well when we got here.

Just to the right was an alpine lake, which of course we swam in!

In fact the trail continued along that ridge to the left, then up, up, up! The trail disappeared soon after the photo was taken, but we followed cairns instead.  

The view grew.

That's not the top...

We reached our first snow patch, which had been on our Lofoten bucket list, and slid down it. August snow angels ayone?

From here it was boulder-hopping  up to the summit ridge, where the view exploded from 180 to 360 degrees. Adie ran along the ridge, the exhilaration almost too much to handle. The cairn at the top said 804m, and we happened to be on one of the tallest mountains in the area. The views are hard to capture, but easy to remember. We could see the length of the Lofoten islands, more than 150 kilometers. Unforgettable.

It was hard to leave the summit, but once we did, we descended quickly and got back on the bikes. We cycled the main road back to Svolvaer, which we had ridden before in the opposite direction, but in glorious sunshine it was literally unrecognizable. In Svolvaer we figured out where our boat would leave from in the morning, cooked dinner in the harbor, then biked over a bridge to a nearby island, where we found our final campsite on an old gun emplacement, looking out to sea. 

This is looking east at sunset!

We woke up early, and biked to the boat, having realized we weren't certain they took bikes, being a passenger ferry. But they did. 

The Lofotens are a hard place to leave, but we had an absolutely magical time, tried to soak up the views and the spirit of the place, and built good store of soul-food for the coming year!

P.S. The ferry is a catamaran and really fast. Here is Lucy leaning against the wind at the bow!