The Lofotens are gorgeous, one of my most fondly remembered tours. https://www.flickr.com/photos/andrewclark/albums/72157622365574201
Thanks Andrew - I've been thinking about a Lofoten trip, there's plenty of inspiration there. Where did you get to?
Looking forward to more inspiration from Salvatore too...
Bill, I'm sure you'd love the Lofotens. I had ridden from the south of Norway (Kristiansand) to the coast then north on route 17, and at times I wondered if I would become blasé about the stupendous views of fjords and snowcapped mountains every day. But there was no chance of that once I reached the Lofotens. The ferry from Bodø arrived at Moskones at 7:30pm, but I hadn't done much that day, and my legs were still fresh, and that far north in mid-June it wasn't going to get dark, so I just rode off into the evening. It was a magical cycling experience, through little fishing villages (smelling of rotting fish), with the sun, sky, sea and mountains putting on an every-changing light show, which went on and on. It wasn't until it got very cold at about 2 and I began to wonder if the views were real or some exaggerated film backdrop. Whenever the road turned inland it wasn't long before it reached the sea again. At about 2 am tiredness and cold got the better of me near
here and I pitched my tent in a clearing at the side of the road.
Wild Camp by
John Spooner, on Flickr
Most cyclists I met had the same strategy as I had - 3 or 4 nights wild camping then a night in a paid campsite for showering shaving, charging gadgets etc. I wondered if a hammock might have been useful, as there are plenty of trees, and it's often difficult to find an ideal wild-camping spot because of stones, undergrowth, density of forest, absence of a square inch of flat ground etc etc etc. But a hammock would need the addition of robust and effective mosquito netting.
