Our travels continued from beautiful Reine towards Henningsvær. As we chatted about not encountering that many animals at close quarters this trip, we suddenly saw a group of greylag geese right next to us. They just calmly ate their grass lunch while we cycled past them. Also wherever you go here, you can hear a bell ringing, and the sound usually comes from sheep wearing the bells. They roam quite near the roads or even on the roads in northern Norway, so one must be careful while driving.
We passed through a cute village called Ramberg and cycled a bit on the beach. After around 43 kilometres we found a beautiful spot for our tent (with some cloudberries!) and a great place to charge the bikes. We’d had a great sunny morning the day before and that’s what we got this morning as well – our bikes were once again fully charged from the sun as we continued our journey. When nearing Henningsvær, we got some light rain for the first time on the trip and the smell of the wet asphalt was so refreshing. We went to sleep in a traditional Norwegian fisherman’s cabin in a town that we looked forward to exploring the next day.
We had cycled 84 kilometres to Henningsvær the day before and decided to take the time in the town and not rush with continuing the journey. Boys went to fish in the hopes of catching a nice cod for lunch while Emmi stayed in the town center enjoying the cute houses, galleries and cafés. While roaming around the town, Emmi spotted a boutique called Engelskmannsbrygga, which sold such beautiful glass and ceramic pieces and photographs. There you could also watch the artisans working with their creations. Luckily an affordable fish soup in Klatrekaféen caught her eye as well, since the boys unfortunately didn’t catch any fish this time.
Then we were on the road once again. We didn’t get too far from the last destination since we stumbled upon the Lofoten Aquarium which we wanted to visit. There we got to learn a little about the aquatic species in northern Norway and also about the fishing culture here, what it was like before and how it is today. We took a rather light cycling day and stayed in Kabelvåg for the night, quite near the aquarium.
The next morning it was time for Max to leave and drive back home to Finland. We said our goodbyes and took a little time to do some bike maintenance. We had had some difficulties with our trailers, or actually with the attachments of the trailers to the bikes, and we managed to fix them before hopping back on the saddle. We hadn’t been that good with just getting ahead with our journey since we’d stopped to photograph all things at every corner (for example this pretty bay under a kilometre away from our sleeping spot) but now we decided to move along a bit further in the upcoming days. Our goal was to get to Olsborg, where Emmi’s stepfather lives, which would take us around four days with 230 kilometres and a few boat trips.
Our first ferry took us to Melbu and we found a sweet camping spot quite near there. We got some good sun and our batteries full, but the weather forecast looked more gloomy from now on, so we were a bit nervous if we’d be able to charge our bikes after this before Olsborg.
We made some changes to our plans to fit Emmi’s stepfather’s schedule to ours, so instead of Andenes we headed to a more southern route. Then we learned a valuable lesson on the next part of our trip: don’t trust Google Maps when it tells you that a secluded sand road makes your trip shorter and make sure in advance that the ferry connection Google tells you to take still exists. Oh boy what an adventure we had because of our trust in Google. This sand road, which actually turned into a more of a forest path at some point, took us about 3 hours though it was only 25 kilometres long with it’s crazy steep uphills and rocky paths (which were not that suited for cycling, especially not with trailers). We did get to see a gorgeous valley and a beautiful moose a couple of meters from us though, if one wants to see the bright side of our energy consuming wander. On top of this, on the next morning we realised that the ferry we were supposed to take didn’t exist anymore, so we had to make yet another plan.
After some brainstorming everything went better than expected – actually, our new plan turned out to be a quite fun one. We cycled to Harstad from where we hopped on board the Hurtigbåt, a ship that sails the famous ferry route Hurtigruten. The route goes from the south of Norway, from Bergen, to the north, to Kirkenes, which is on the Russian boarder, and it is said to be the most beautiful ferry route on the whole world. Because we finally got the real Norwegian weather – lower temperatures with rain – we didn’t get to see the sights on their full glory, but the cloudy and misty weather made everything feel rather peaceful and a bit mystical.
We got ashore in Finnsnes and after a lunch break we cycled the last 36 kilometres to Olsborg. All in all, from Reine to Olsborg we had cycled 347 kilometres and taken three different ferries. The last 146 kilometres we cycled with a single charge, although it meant that at the second half of those kilometres we could use electricity only on the steepest uphills and we really drained the batteries to as empty as they can get.
Now we’ll enjoy the hospitality of Emmi’s stepfather for a couple of nights and rest our legs a bit. On the next post we’ll visit Senja and return to the basics and what we think is important while camping. See you soon!
– Emmi and Joel
Our green e-bike trip 