Lofoten to Gratangen

Moyasalen

After the nine hour day yesterday a shorter day today of 133 miles (>3 h travelling, 5 h elapsed). I'm now having to plan several days in advance, looking at my ultimate destination, then divide the distance up into sensible daily amounts, then see if there is actually any accommodation available at that location.

The distance between villages is noticeably increasing, and even more so for garages.

24 hour daylight in much more "normal" now. Here is a picture of the cabin I stayed in last night, taken at 1 am! Notice the sun still illuminating the mountain.

1 am in the morning!

The different colours of the water is actually the sea bed or deep water, as the water is completely clear.

A close up of the clear water.

After climbing a pass and travelling through the high plateau a garage hove into view for a fuel stop for the bike and a tasty burger for me.

Whilst sitting at the picnic tables a local lorry driver for one of the largest supermarket chains (Rema 1000) came up and said "Nice bike" and joined me at the table. He then said that he'd had to stop for a break (and an ice cream) as the camper van (combi) he'd been following all up the pass had been driving him crazy by changing speed between 70 and 80 km/h all the time.

The lorries regularly drive at 10 to 20 km/h over the speed limit (80 km/h out of town), but not in towns, where the 50 or 60 km/h limits are more strictly obeyed as this is where the police tend to enforce the limits. He also mentioned that the police have some unmarked BMW cars.

He was telling me that only last week the pass to Nordkapp had to be closed due to snow! It's open at the moment and hopefully the weather will be OK for the next three days or so it will take me reach it. Norway is a big country, so what looks like only a small fraction of the map is actually a fairly large distance, and then factor in that the concept of straight roads doesn't seem to exist in Norway, you drive all around the fjords and through the valleys..