Sunday 4th July 2010
A 5:30 am alarm, but I beat it by ten minutes. I had packed and showered last evening so it was really just a task of having breakfast which was banana and yoghurt. I had set myself a target of heading off to the bus station by around 6 am.
While there are steps down to the station level just across the road from the guesthouse, I had no intention of managing my bag down the three or four levels. No I was going to follow the road around and this was quite a detour. However, I managed it and got to the station quicker than I had expected. But that was OK because the bus arrived at 6:45 am and there were several others waiting to board it.
The driver was not sure about a senior discount because I was not Norwegian, but I pointed out that none of the websites or information I had read in English mentioned that, so he let me on at half fare. That was good because it still cost 290 NOK for the six and a half hour trip.
So, just a minute after 7 am and the bus was off and the next journey of my trip was under way.
We wove our way around the streets of Narvik finally reaching the bridge over a side fjord. Now we were to drive along the fjord side for some distance. The fjord itself was like a mirror, as were some of the other fjords we later passed. The mountains and shoreline reflected in the sea as if it really was a mirror.
Very few people were around this early on a Sunday morning. Small row boats with tine outboard motors attached were moored regularly along the shores. The road curved around the small bays and coves and the headlands. Settlements were strung out along the road. The came as the land gave space and disappeared along with the land as the mountain sides came to meet the water. Some of the higher mountains still had noticeable amounts of snow on their tops and slopes. Much of the lower slopes were tree covered.
Soon we reached a ferry terminal with the boat just arrived, disembarking cars. The bus drove onto the centre of the ferry deck followed by a tour bus. Once parked on board we were able to get off the bus and go into the passenger lounge and cafe. We could also go up a deck and stand outside, but this was a rather cool experience if you didn't have a warm jack on. Mine was back in the bus. Down in the lounge a group of English speaking tourists were lining up for coffee and muffins. I noticed that the tour leader's name badge included the fact that he was leading a Great Railway Journey Tour. I assumed that they had come down the mountain on one of yesterday's two trains from Sweden.
After a 15 to 20 minute sail, we were able to drive off and continue on our way. Just prior to embarking we had driven through some imposing mountain valleys. Great curved rock faces rose almost vertically to the summits of the mountain ridges and peaks. Very spectacular. Now we were able to see the back sides of the mountains and they had the same soaring sides. Rather spectacular I thought.
We drove on passing various fjords, climbing passes and travelling along high alpine areas. Not flat table lands, but wider than just a valley. They undulated with lakes filling depressions and lots of stunted trees and plenty of moss. I enjoyed these sections and because of the distance we were travelling, we drove along several different examples of this type of landscape.
We went in and out of numerous tunnels, some quite long.
Every now and then the bus would come to a halt and pull off the road at some intersection or corner, or just along the highway. Sure enough it would have a blue bus stop sign and usually a little waiting shed. The sheds reminded me of the little sheds New Zealand farmers often have at their gate for their children to wait in for the school bus. Now some of these stops were totally remote, just there in the landscape.
I remembered Robyn's descriptions from her first visit to Norway. How they had to wait at similar isolated bus stops and trust that what they had been told would happen – the bus would come along and stop. I was also reminded of how she had described the tunnels although I do not think I have been through any as long as some she described.
So we carried on up and down and round and down and up and past a mount lake then another or was it now a fjord. Occasionally we past a small settlement centred around a processing factory of some sort.
As we approached Bodo the lower land got wider although it was still noticeably sloping up to the mountain sides. Here I saw harvested fields for silage rolled up in white plastic covered bundles. The fields were small which I guess indicated that the farms were as well.
Look! There are six happy contented diary cows sitting out in a small field of grass. How unusual. A bit later I spotted some horses – not many perhaps six.
Finally we reached Bodo and drove through the town towards the Sentrum. The stop was beside the local ferry boat births. But I had to head way from them. As we drove in through town I had spotted the street my hotel was in and I also had a small location map. I knew the direction and headed off that way. I also knew that if I spotted the railway station then I was just a bock away. So it was pretty straight forward getting there.
I had to wait around 30 until the cleaning was completed before I could get into my room. The City Hotel is a small budget hotel which is clean and tidy. My room has a single bed and a couple modern bunks, a table and a chest of drawers. Full length windows let the light in and give me a view of across the street and if I look sideways I see the railway station clock tower. The railway incidentally only reached here in 1961 which was pretty much the time when railways were beginning to decline in New Zealand.
Today in the bus I have travelled around 240 kms in six and a half hours. It is a great bus ride and very scenic. Like the Lofoten to Narvik journey, it should be on more tourist itineraries. Unfortunately though, the dull grey overcast conditions with some rain, were not ideal for taking quick photos from a moving bus. I know from other times, such as yesterday's train trip, that the results are a bit disappointing. In the selection of photos at the start of this blog you need to realise that I have enhanced them a bit to kill the dullness in the originals. So don't say; "What's he talking about, they look fine".
I must say though that a Norwegian city on a dull damp Sunday is completely uninspiring. The shops are shut the streets largely empty of cars or people. Once I had settled into my hotel room I went our walking around the nearby streets. I did find a decent coffee bar with fresh roasted coffee. The best espresso in two months. Looking down a street to the harbour I was able to watch one of the Hurtigruten ships sail past heading off on the next segment of their voyage. I can tell you from the tourist brochure I have that the north bound vessel arrives at 12:30 and leaves at 3 pm - that's the one I saw – and the south bound one arrives at 1:30 am and departs at 4 am. That gives some time for local sightseeing.
I can tell you that the Midnight Sun is nearly over in Bodo. It starts on 2nd June and ends on the 10th July. The average July temperature is 13.6 C and in January -2.1C so that for the year the mean temperature is just 4.6 degrees.
The population is just over 47,000 but that includes far more area than just the town itself. It is the whole council controlled area which I think I read as being about 250 square kilometres.
Latitude is 67'17'' North so we are still above the Arctic Circle.
While I think of Norwegian cities as being as old as the rest of Europe's it is interesting to discover that Bodo was only established in 1816 and was a very small community then. Until they ran out, the famous boom in herring fishing from 1860's onwards gave a boost to Bodo's growth.
Like Narvik, Bodo was the scene of German attack in 1940. On one day in May that year the Germans launched a massive attack and in just two and a half hours had reduced most of the town to rubble. The population had largely escaped before hand into country cabins.
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