On this trip Myself, Berit and Hannah travelled by ferry, foot and hitch hike from the southern town of Å northwards to where the Lofoten meets mainland Norway at Narvik.

Hiking

The main aim of our trip was to get in as much hiking as possible as we all enjoy doing this activity. We did many different types of hikes from mountain tops to walks through picturesque towns. We discovered it is typical for the Lofoten that hiking routes head straight up the mountains where as in other places I have been hiking in other countries it is more common for the trail to zigzag up the hillside. This meant that some of the hikes we did were very steep and often the trail was made of lose rocks and gravel making it hard work.

On some of the hikes I found Berit and Hannah were fitter than myself and therefore often ended up quite far ahead of me meaning I spent a lot of the time hiking on my own. At times I didn’t mind this as I like to take my time when hiking and look at plants or animals I don’t recognise so when I return from the trip I can identify them. Other times I found it quite lonely hiking alone especially when it was very steep and the path is unclear; I would have preferred if they had waited for me to catch up with them from time to time rather than wait for me at the end of the hike at the top of the mountain.

The main hikes we did were to Reinebringen, kvalvika beach, flakstadtind, Haukland-utakliev, Mannen and Festvågtind. All of these had spectacular views and we often spent time taking photos at the top of a hike or if we found something of interest along the way.

Nature

The Lofoten has an environment and nature like I have never seen before, it is where the mountains meet the ocean and this combination results in breath-taking views wherever you look.

On our trip we saw a lot of wild life in the form of plants and animals. We saw many birds mainly Tjeld’s or Oyster Catchers in English, I believe it was nesting season and I noticed that they were particually protective of their nest towards seagulls, I often saw them chasing away the seagulls of circling above their nests. We also saw Ptarmigans which we had seen previously on the snow-hole trip. It was interesting to see them again at this time of year as some had changed their feather already to a brown colour while some were part way through this transformation gives them a brown and white speckled look. Another bird I was pleased to see twice on this trip was a Sea Eagle also known as the white-tailed eagle. This bird is recognised by its large size and white tail.

Another interesting find we made was what we believe to be a vertebrae of a whale washed up on the rocky shore near Kvalvika beach.

One part of the nature that I was shocked by was the amount of rubbish and junk that was washed up on some of the beaches. Kvalvika beach and the surrounding beaches were the worst affected. Coming from Guernsey we are very lucky to boast some of the cleanest and most beautiful beaches in the UK and seeing such a large amount of litter on the beaches shocked and saddened me. I had never seen anything like it before and made me think that the litter washed up on this beach was just a tiny amount compared to what must be in the oceans around the world.

Camping

When camping it was sometimes hard to find somewhere with a good water source mainly because we were so close to the sea at most of our camp sites. We always managed to find a water source even if it took a long time and a long discussion. The only big disagreement we had as a group came when we planned to stay in Svolvær for more than one night. The islands we were dropped off on and that we planned to camp on had no water source. This was a problem as it was a national holiday the next day so we would have no access to water. The other problem we had was finding a green space flat enough and relatively close enough to the city to set up our tent. We did eventually find a piece of forested area (almost by accident) with a very small clearing in the trees near to a water source.

We decided to only take the outer tent and the tarp with us as this would be lighter than taking the inner tent as well. I find this combination works really well. It gives you more space inside the tent and even room to comfortably be able to cook inside if the weather isn’t too great outside.

All of our campsites were beautiful but all very different. On one night where we had good weather we were even able to sleep with the door of the tent open so we could just wake up and look out at the ocean!

Hitch Hiking

We were very lucky on this trip that we managed to hitch hike the whole way from Å to Svolvær even though we hadn’t planned on doing so. Along the way we met a whole range of people but they all were very kind with most going out of their way to drop us off somewhere they hadn’t planned to go, or show us the best camping spots and water sources. It was a wide range of people that gave us a lift from young to old to people who spoke little English, we were grateful to every one of them for stopping and adding another spark of excitement and adventure to our trip. Along with the people came a wide range of cars; some people had trailers or big cars we could put our bags in while others had tiny cars where we had to hold our bags on our laps for the journey!

One thing I couldn’t understand was where the Norwegians get all their free time from, everyone that picked us up seemed not to be in a rush at all and saying they had the spare time to drive us that little further. One man who drove us to Haukland beach took us all the way along the mountain road and into the sand car park said “I’ve got a Land Rover I might as well use it!”.

I believe we were quite lucky with the weather as we only had to wait in the rain once and most of the time we found a lift in a relatively short time. The hardest place to find a lift was when we were leaving Leknes. Even though there was the largest amount of traffic here no one seemed to want to stop with some people even driving on the opposite side of the road to where we were standing to avoid us!

What I learnt from this trip

• Always check you have your passport the night before!
• I learnt that in nature is where I want to be, I am not a city person – I love the freedom of living in nature and the simplicity of the way you live. Having to collect your water each day and cooking meals with the most spectacular backdrops is amazing. The best water you will ever taste comes from the fast flowing streams or rivers you find along the way, drinking straight from these water sources is more refreshing than you can imagine.