A windy day in Senja island
After ten days riding along Norway and writing this log, I’ve already exhausted my limited vocabulary of adjectives, having though barely conveyed an approximate idea of how irresistible, how majestically beautiful this country is, also despite so many pictures uploaded (only one third of those I took); but they’re all so pretty, so spectacular many, that selecting them takes me longer than writing the text; in which, by the way, I don’t know what other words to use for expressing my amazement without repeating myself. So, today I’m not even going to try; I won’t make fruitless literary efforts, but let the photos talk for themselves. And this short video, too.
Yesterday, on my way to the archipelago of Lofoten, I stayed overnight in the idyllic Tranoybotn campsite, on Senja island. This morning it dawns a windy day, the sky garbled with shifting and assorted clouds as if brushstrokes on the blue by a whimsical painter.
Assorted clouds on the sky over Senja
The dining room is closed with a back in a while notice hanging on the door, which means I can’t even drink a coffee. It doesn’t mind, nevertheless, since I seldom do. I pack my few things, fix the cases on the bike and, taking back the same detour that brought me here, I am again on the main route heading west, to Gryllefjord, where I must catch the ferry to Lofoten; namely to a town called Andenes.
Small bay by Lavollksjosen
Despite being only seventy kilometres away from Grylle, I progress very slowly because I stop every so often for taking pictures or a short video. Specially, it calls my attention the small Bergsoyan archipelago, formed by diminutive nearby islands which, from the shore, seem to imitate a scale-model; or as if seen from an airplane.
Bergsoyan archipelago, opposite Hamn
I’m a bit hungry when I come to Hamn, one of whose tiny islands sports a charming hotel with a restaurant looking over an idyllic little beach of chrystaline waters. I glance at the menu, just in case I fancy some appetizer, but the prices bounce me out; this is not the place for me.
Beach by Hamn i Senia hotel
Before jumping again on the motorcycle and ride on, I take a walk around the place. Almost at an arm’s reach there’s another small island, barely a rock, called Skjaholmen, with a cove whose shallow and sandy bottom invites to take a bath. What a place for cooling down on a warm summer day! Not today, though, so windy and cloudy.
Skjaholmen
Gryllefjord is a small harbour village, well sheltered from all hostile winds and seas, and living on the maritime connection between Senja island (Troms county) and Andoya island (Nordland county), a link that can save a driver some two hundred kilometres of bendy coastal road. As usual, I’ve come here without knowing the ferry schedule, but this time I haven’t got lucky: there is a plus two hours’ wait ahead of me. I consider staying here overnight, so I ask at the hotel by the terminal: a business in the pure middle-of-nowhere style which also features a convenience store, bar, restaurant and gas pump. I ask for rooms and the lady says yes, but don’t hurry, they won’t get booked; you can come later if you’re not sure now.
Lakselva glacier valley, past Hamn
So meanwhile, I take a stroll around the village (three long streets parallel to the fiord) and wander round the boats floating still on the quiet harbour waters. As the afternoon goes by, the sky clears up a bit and the sun, walking west, slips in under the high clouds, brightly shining on the whites of houses and crafts.
Gryllefjord harbour
Today’s route from Tranoybotn to Gryllefjord
Eventually, new vehicles gather up on the parking lot: cars, campers and some trucks. The only motorcycle is Rosaura. A guy addresses me who’s around there walking his dog. I’ve seen him a while ago and took him for a local, but no: he’s awaiting, like me, the ship’s arrival for boarding her. His is an interesting, clever conversation, and alas, he’s the rare type who can listen! Name is Frode. On a good company, time goes faster, therefore the ferry is here sooner than we can feel. Everybody goes to their wheels for getting the automobiles up the ramp into the hold. Frode drives a camper along with his partner, another nice guy.
Rock rising above Gryllefjord
Soon after weighing anchor, on the port side we go past an enormous cliff at whose foot the calm Gryllefjord sleeps. We’re sailing the Norwegian Sea, crossing the twenty nautical miles wide opening of Andfjorden. Water is a deep blue colour, the like of which I haven’t seen for quite a long time. To our wake lies the mountainous and uneven island of Senja, Norway’s second largest.
Senja island
To the south, in the distance, there come into sight over the sea the peaks of Lofoten. The few passengers on board the ferry move about the aft deck like ants in search of food, from board to board and to the stern, excited by the majestic combination of sea, land and sky, hunting for some good shots.
Senja in the foreground and Lofoten in the distance
Once I’m done, I go inside and bump again into the twosome, sit at a table with them and retake our conversation. We take to each other, partly owing to the fact that I can relax, knowing I won’t be harassed. Eventually, we agree in meeting whenever I go past their town, near the border with Sweden, on my return to Earth — I mean, since for so many reasons Norway doesn’t seem to belong to this planet.
Twilight in Andoya
We’re reaching our destination and, again, everybody goes down to the hold. After bidding farewell to my friends I get ready to disembark. I set foot on Andoya under a rosy twilight sky. The weather has changed considerably this side of the sea; even though only thirty five kilometres west of Senja, this coast feels more unsheltered and exposed, balder, colder and windier. It’s barely half past eight and there is not a soul on the windswept, unpleasant streets of Andenes, important fishing harbour of yore that, by the late XXth century, still kept its population thanks to an air base; but in the past two decades it has very much declined, and if there is some activity left it is only owing to the several whale safari businesses based here.
Andenes’ west beach and lighthouse
As Frode and his boyfriend tell me, only older people live in these places; and I, on going past the few, solitary streets, on watching the neat, scattered houses, I can’t but wonder: how does life look like in such a place as this?, what kind of existence these folks lead? Nothing attracts the younger ones nor the new families, and those very few how are born here won’t stay after finishing school; they’ll migrate to the cities, the universities, the Stressful World Where Things Happen. What a desolate place Andenes looks!, on this remote island only reachable by ferry or across its only bridge at the other end. The west-facing window panes, when they get the last sunbeams of twilight, shine to the sunset as if longing for the fishing splendour that passed away.
Twilight dreams
The Viking, a hostel where I’ve online-booked a room, has the reception at a neighbouring hotel, Norlandia Andrikken. I guess they’re both the same business. Seeing that I’m traveling solo, on his own accord the kind receptionist makes me a good discount on the price. I’m delighted with these Norwegians: a few times already I’ve been offered–without even asking–better prices than those booked.
There is a small toy-looking church in Andenes, like a little house painted white with a black gabled roof and a thin pointed tower, with no superfluous adornment or flourish; it’s the typical, simple and austere protestant style–rather ugly for my taste, to tell the truth–very much alike most other churches in these regions; it is as if they had only one design and mass-produced it for every village and town. Certainly quite practical, most of all considering how little parishioners there must be here.
I make the most of the remaining daylight by taking a lovely stroll along the beach, which is at places so flat that, as the tide flows in, the water stretches on the sand and draws in like a puddle spilled onto the floor from an overfilled bathtub. Further on, to the northwest, a sharply jagged rocky mass towering above the sea silhouettes against the sky.
I don’t know why, this is how I imagined, when reading Tolkien’s books, the place where the elves weighed anchor on their ships when they departed forever from the Middle Earth, as the beautiful legend goes: …and the remaining Eldar set sail from the Gray Havens on board the last white ships built by Cirdan, the shipwright, to follow the Straight Path. And so this Folk of the Stars forever left, out to the West and the Blessed Real beyond the reach of Mortal Men, who only know it through the legends, or perhaps through their dreams…
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