Country: Norway
Distance travelled:
Weather: Raining

I dragged myself out of bed just after 9am, giving Mark lots of room to continue sleeping. It was still raining and although one of our gas bottles had run out last night just as I finished cooking dinner, I decided to put the heating on anyway. We knew there were a few places on our route ahead that sold LPG and we would have to make sure we topped up before we headed into Finland having heard it is like the proverbial hens teeth in that country.

Neither of us were showing any signs of enthusiasm today, it was close to midday when we finally finished the morning routine and were back on the road. A few hours drive had us at the Arctic Circle Centre, a large building with a cafe and a shop selling souvenirs and clothing and with a surprising array of taxidermy. Even a polar bear looking a little skinny although still alarmingly tall.

Arctic Circle Centre

Arctic circle monument

The carpark must have had at least twenty motorhomes there when we arrived and the same when we finally left although all different vehicles. Several bus loads of tourists also arrived, paused to take their photo at the monument indicating where the Arctic Circle was (in 1990, apparently it is moving gradually north) and bought some souvenir before heading off. We took the photo, enshewed the souvenir, and travelled onward. This stretch of road, high up and reminding us of the tundra in Finland, seemed supplied with an incredible amount of carparks. We could, and probably should, have parked up at any point with a view of rocks, streams, wind-bent trees and snow-shrouded mountains but we continued on as the road wound back down toward the coast.

We decided to have an early stop at a rest area just outside Rognan and payed for an internet connection for the evening. A little in-depth research on our next destination, the Lofotan Islands, is required, I need to make sure our packet of renskav really is reindeer meat and work out how to cook it and there is all the usual communication tasks to attend to.

Nusfjord