Road trip to northern Norway
We had our “summer holiday” at the end of April this year. We packed our van and drove all the way to Northern Norway from Geilo. One thing I have learned within living 5 years in Norway is that you should not look at the kilometers when you plan to do some road tripping. Just look at the hours, look at if the roads are open or not at vegvesen.no, look at the weather forecast and consider still having winter tyres even if most of the roads would be clean. Our trip got right away some hundred more kilometers, because the road in Valdres was closed due to bad weather. We started by driving to Lillehammer and then towards Trondheim on the first day. We had picked up some random hotel in Trondheim and it ended up being a swedish ferry simulator. It was on top of the highway and obviously druck drivers favourite. We didn’t see much of Trondheim, the city where I use to study 2005-2006. But this hotel gave anyways quite room for sleeping and very funny “corona time” takeaway breakfast.
The journey continued next day to Mo i Rana. We arrived quite early in the afternoon and thought that we could have driven further this day, but on the other hand it was nice to take a walk in the city and we even ended up going out to eat. This dinner was absolutely the best I had eaten this year. Big recommendations to Bangkok restaurant in Mo i Rana. Stopping at the supermarket felt grazy once this was the first time ever this spring while people where not wearing masks at the supermarket.
After two nights on the road it was time to head all the way to our destination. We had contacted Lauri Pietikäinen through a facebook group “Finns in Norway”. We didn’t know him beforehand, but asked for tips for tent places for our trip. Lauri offered us to rent a cabin next to his house so we decided to make a stop first at Vesterålen and Gisløya island. The island is located north of Lofoten. We took one ferry on the way. The cabin was super cosy with fire place. Outdoor toilet did’nt butter us either. Lauri also offered to make amazing fish meals with little payment. He tries to live as ecological as possible growing own vegetables and catching the fish himself. Earlier he worked on the wale watching safaris and still helps the fishermen on their work. We took some walks nearby and it felt like being surrounded of a nature film all the time. No matter if the weather wasn’t always so beautiful. If you ever want to visit this place, take contact Northern Guiding Service Lauri and you will get the best local guide ever. No matter if it is history, nature or wales you are interested in.
For us, after a long and very cold winter in Geilo, it also felt exotic to walk in rubber boots instead of winter boots and being outside in plus degrees. Even +10. Didn’t know back then, that this summer is going to be very hot all over the place.
We visited an old fisherman village with Lauri. The village used to be the second largest fisherman village in Vesterålen. Then the harbour ended up being too small and the whole village was basically shut down. There was nobody living in the village anymore by 1975. In the 1980’s and 1990’s german students started to travel to Nyksund and germans started the renovation of the old houses. By now there is about 20 people living in this village and it is a year around tourist destination. By corona time this place looked liked a bit of a chost town, once every place was shut down. We visited Lauri’s friend who is working there. There use to be also reggae festival, Rastajam. I wish there still was. What a crazy place for a reggae festival.
After about one week without skies on and seeing all the mountains around you I started to feel restless. Vesterålen is maybe not the most popular off-piste skiing destination. But one top, Blåheia, was worth visiting. We went there twice and on the other day the weather was amazing.
After almost a week in Gisløya we decided to make a trip to Lofoten and Henningsvaer. The weather forecast wasn’t really on our side on this trip and so we did not ski at all there. Not so glamour camping either at Kalle’s camping that was mainly on slush snow. Brand new bensin stove was also leaking. But this is nature travelling.
After Lofoten we came back to the cabin, backed our car and drove further to Senja Island. This was also a very quick stop to visit some friends who were starting a new cafe and Senja Roasters roasting company. The evening in Senja was very beautiful. I had been there before skiing with my friends. This year there had been very little snow and because of high temperature changes the snow was now pure betong. We did a short snow shoe hike to Lonketinden to see some views and then set up a tent while the sun was going down.
From Senja the trip continued to Lyngen. We had booked a cabin and a good friend of mine, Sari was joining us from Tromso for skiing. Sari is one of the reasons why I ever moved to Norway. We got to know each other in Rovaniemi and made a great mountain biking trip to Narvik area in summer 2013. While we were driving back from there we talked a lot of moving to Norway. Sari made it first to Lyngseidet and further to Tromso and then we moved to Geilo. It was great to catch up even though her speed in randonnee skiing is from another planet compared to mine. So in the mountains we were pretty much alone. Antti joined some of the trips and got his first real northern Norway off-piste tours as well.
The last night we spent in Tromso and we did some short city tour and walks. I know the weather there can be very ugly, but the closeness of the sea and mountains is very appealing. Sari kept skiing on her holiday, Antti took flight back to Oslo and got a ride to Geilo. I kept driving our car all the way to Southern Finland.
