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| The sun was just setting as we found a campspot this evening, it looked like the mountain was exploding! |
Woke to rain this morning and
the showers continued, but have ended up with a sunny evening. It has been a
rather leisurely day today, cruising the coastal road. Not far from our
overnight camp there was a war museum with a coastal battery built by the
Nazi’s…except it was shut, the season is over!
Noticed a rest area on the side
of the fjord and it had a symbol of a fish and a hook so stopped to check it
out. There was in fact a long steel staircase down the rocks to the water
level. Ian got his fishing rod out and had a fish…and within about 15 minutes
he had caught a mackerel, not huge but big enough to keep and very fat. Quite a
thrill actually, first fish in Norway! Let’s hope for more.
Our drive to the next ferry at
Nesna took us through more tunnels and we climbed up to more than 300 metres,
amazing views and dropped down to sea level again.
Noticing much larger farms on
this coast. On the ferry yesterday Ian chatted with a chap who had a small
farm..and he spoke good English! Learnt
that all animals including sheep are house for 8 – 9 months of the year. All
grass is cut and made into round bales for feeding to the housed animals. He
had 30 Charolais cows and he feeds them one round bale in the morning and
another in the evening, sliced up with a machine on the tractor, but taken and
fed in a wheel barrow. No wonder we are seeing so many round bales in the
fields.
Had about a 30 minute wait for
the ferry to Lavong and then a 25 minute trip. The next part of the drive was
along the sea through more farmland and then crossed a very “elegant” bridge
into Sandnessjoen, quite unexpected. Drove through town but nothing open being
a Sunday so continued our way south along HW17.
Had a cultural stop on the way,
when we called into the Alstahaug Church which was beside the Petter Dass
museum, a very modern building which was built as a millennium project. It was
almost closing time when we arrived so just walked around outside. The church
is one of seven medieval era churches still surviving in Norway and although we
couldn’t get inside, it was a pretty impressive building with its copper
sheathed spire. I enjoyed wandering through the grave yard with some dating
back to the 1800’s.
It was late afternoon and
looked around for an overnight spot, but nothing suitable, and before we
realised we had arrived at the end of the road at Tjotta, ready for the next
ferry crossing. We had to wait just over an hour for the ferry to Forvika along
with quite a number of others. Several ferries to other islands came and went
as we waited. This is just a way of life for locals, hopping from Island to
Island. We had two stops along the way and some cars backed on so they could
get off at the smaller islands. This ferry only had a lounge below decks so we
stayed in the van for the trip, although we couldn’t see anything! It was
7.30pm when we got off and thought we may have been able to overnight at the
nearby marina, but nothing there so continued on for about 20 minutes and found
a rest area right beside the beach and joined another motorhome who had also
come off the ferry. They are German and very friendly but they had very little
English. Ian deboned and filleted the little mackerel, put plenty of lemon
pepper and herbs on it and cooked it over the barbecue. It was surprisingly
rather yummy with some nice wholemeal bread.
Evidently there will be another
good Northern Lights tonight, but there is quite a bit of cloud around at the
moment but will still set the alarm to check it out.
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| Grass in a pond |
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| A few coloured leaves - Autumn is coming |
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| ....and a fish on the line! |
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| ..the result was a mackerel, nice and fat but not very big! |
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| The stairway down to the fishing spot. |
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| Small areas of pasture which are cut and wrapped ready for the winter. |
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| The spectacular bridge into Sandnessjoen |
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| Petter Dass Museum |
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| Interesting bunch of fungi |
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| The very old Alstahaug
Church |
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| Interesting crosses in the cemetry |
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| Getting the "huge" mackerel ready for the barbecue. |
UPDATE….The alarm went off at
12.30 and I peered out the window, and yes the sky had cleared and I could see
the Northern Lights. So both up and pulled on warm gear, and just walked behind
the van with my camera and tripod and got some great shots. There is no Light
Pollution in this area which makes it so much better. After about 20 minutes
the lights died down, think maybe we should have got up earlier. So back to bed
to warm up.
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| Another amazing light show...you never tire of this. |
Comments
Brilliant.