Island hopping...

What a week!

Grim weather to start us off out of Tromso; a headwind that stopped us dead more than once and just about enough sideways rain for the truly lovely Kine and Atle to bring us hot chocolate as we waited for a ferry near their home, ended up inviting us to stay for a wet and windy night in their caravan......win! Since then the weather's been on the up and has now been boiling for a few days whilst we've ridden down the stunning Lofoten Islands... this place is unreal!

Thanks to everyone who's helped us already, it's been so much better for it!

Here's just a few to get you started:
 

Granny's burgers...

The sight (and smell) of the North

Our first self-caught meal!

Bedding down in a school playground hut... thank you very much!

Crazy girls, you would't believe quite how cold we were at this stage!

Boiled fish, rice, cheese and the almighty stock cube in Gryllefjord

Not so Bleik!

Camping in Sortland (11pm)

Hot pain-au-chocolat, living the dream...

...?!

Warming up in Melbu

Welcome to Lofoten, where the sun (nearly) always shines...

Our first wild camp

Not a car in sight, traffic has become an event!

Eco-day!

One angry crab! Video to follow...

Arctic swimming, no problem!

Travellers diet; bread, cheese, salami.

Beer was invented for this night... nearly £20 for a 6 pack though!

Scorching by the sea

A busier road down Lofoten

1am in Å, ready for the Bodø ferry in the morning.

So all is well for now, we're heading down the number 17 road for the next 10 days of so into Trondheim so will check in again there.

Hope the weather brightens up for you at home!

J&A

One long day...

"It's like the world has broken and forgotten what to do!" - what happened to night time?!

We ran to meet Thomas at 10.45 last night with the sun still well above the horizon... a 20 minute drive later we were greeted at his fjord-side house by his lovely wife and other colleagues ready to watch the eclipsing midnight sun:

Thanks for the filter Thomas!

On the dot of midnight

Packing up at 1am

Takk så meget!!!

Catching up on Tromso harbour

If Carlsberg did boats...

So tomorrow we leave Micka and Tromsø to ride the coastal route with a few short ferry rides towards the Lofoten Islands and Bodø, where we will check in again in a week or so.

See you then!

(Day 2, 11.6 miles)

Tromso!

We're here! other than having to cut the bike box down a bit to fit through the x-ray all was fine with our flights and the scenery here is something else. Just a sneaky peek for now though, more when I'm not using a french laptop!

not at all frantic...

Oslo countryside

The far north

Jonas, our very useful fisherman friend!

That's our road!

all good after a calzone, sorted.

I hqte foreign keyboqrds&&&

We're also told tomorrow is a bank holiday and nowhere will be open so off to get food shortly, then getting a lift with our hosts boss to hopefully catch a glimpse of a midnight sun solar eclipse, does it get any better than this?!

Ciao for now!

(day 1, 2.65 miles)

t minus 24 hours...

You know you're going somewhere slightly exciting when amongst the ferry fares for adults, children, cars and bicycles you spot "Snowmobiles- NOK 67,00", this will be EPIC!

The last few days have been mad with final preparations so we're now just looking forward to a good long sleep on the plane tomorrow morning once all is in place. We've also managed to arrange our first couple of nights staying with Micka, a resident with a small house in Tromso, through Couchsurfing. He was kind in informing us there's still a metre of snow in places and even in mid summer it can be very (very) cold!

And finally, I'll have to practice my straight face:

• Fine, thank you - 'takk, bare bra'
• Help - 'Yelp!'
• Goodbye - 'Ha det bra!'

Now to tick off the last few items on the seemingly never ending 'to do' list, so until Norway...

Ha det bra min ven!

t minus 2 weeks...

Time for an update... there have been a few significant developments since my last post:

1. I have a touring bike! More on that in a bit...
2. We're flying to Scotland to do John O'Groats to Lands End with 6 friends once we make it back to Oslo from the Arctic Circle!
3. We still have tons to do and time is flying by at the moment!

So all good really, and things are starting to fall into place. Will book our return flights from Oslo to Edinburgh in the next couple of days (where to find a bike box in Oslo though?!), I'm also thinking some sort of medical insurance might not be too bad an idea...

But the bit I've been waiting for... THE BIKE! After a frankly boring 7 week wait my glittery new bike arrived a couple of weeks ago; a solitude game of pass the parcel ensued but it was so worth the wait!

Just for fun...

One way to spend a quiet evening in...

Fly me to the moon...expensive week!

Good news...I have a companion for at least Scandinavia! Mr Alex Dunphy and I will be setting out from the far north together, aiming to reach Kristiansand in stage 1 of the journey via Finland, Sweden and Norway again.

Not quite the moon, but Tromso... we booked out flights last night and will leave LGW at 9.10am, June 1st, it's actually happening!!!

The whole mentality definitely changes when you actually make the booking; it's as though before that point it could all be just a nice plan, but now it seems a whole lot more real. Also got a CouchSurfing account to give us 'real homes' to stay in along the way with kind folks from all over the place, and the chance to get some local knowledge and meet people generous enough to trust us in their own homes... all very exciting!

I also bought the new touring bike from Hewitt Cycles, measured myself up and it should be through in 3 or 4 weeks, pictures to follow, it's a beaut!

Ciao for now
J