Lofoten: beyond belief

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August 1st 2008

Published: August 1st 2008

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I Get High On Mountains

Welcome to Hell

Told you I went there!

I've got only three letters to describe my last few days: WOW.

Let me start from where I last left off. Wednesday morning I went down to the ferry dock in Bodø (pronounced more like 'budda', for the record). I got myself a ticket for the 3 hour trip to Moskenes, a hamlet near the southwestern end of the Lofoten Island chain. I'm in the process of working my way NE back towards the mainland. While I'm now 67 odd degrees north, I still don't get true midnight sun since It's now just over a month past the solstice. Back to light nights though!

Anyways. So the ferry comes into the islands, and from a distance they look like a wall of mountains. As we dock, there's a fantastic view of these peaks soaring over the pretty fishing houses. And I really do mean soaring: many of these mountains rise to 700-1000m above sea level, yet the island is only a few kilometres wide in places.

Wednesday evening I walked to A. Yes, there's a town called A. Just A. I got a picture of the sign on the road that says: A. I was debating with some

Bodø

View from the campground.

folks from the US I met on the ferry about whether it would be Ah, Eh, or Aw, but none of us won the bet. The guy in the info centre said "It's pronounced "Oh". And we all went "Ohhhhhhhhh".

Thursday I went hiking, of course. Up an incredibly steep hillside to a viewpoint above the town of Riene. Absolutely AMAZING view back down! I carried on up to the tops of the two mountains above, and spent hours just sitting taking in the view. I could not get enough. I could have stayed for days!

I camped last night in Ramburg, where I'll stay again today. Nice campground, really nice facilities (stove, oven, full kitchen!), but a bit windy. The wind is blowing sand off the beautiful white sand beach nearby and now I've got sand in my tent and in my everything. It's worth it though!

Today I couldn't resist, and went hiking again. The peaks near Ramburg are a bit less vertical, but I still had impressive views back to the craggy summits in the south and north. I had a really good scramble up to a 860m summit.

Needless to say, this