We started west from Lofoton Links, but veered north to see what was at the northern end of the road at Gimsøya. That turned out to be a nice little fishing harbour. The region down the western side of Gimsøya is a bit different from what we’d seen elsewhere in the Lofotens. Instead of craggy peaks plunging straight into the water with a bit of road scratched into them near the water, here was more like high-plains tundra, undulating rocky and boggy, with lots of moss and little lakes. Gave the road a chance to move away from the coast for a while, which was a change.
After rejoining the E10 at the Grundstandvein bridge, we headed south east onto Austvågøya and down to visit Henningsvær again, in search of coffee. Tried the little (very!) coffee roasting house on the square, and the coffee was very good. None of the buns took my fancy though. After some more walking around we found our way to another coffee shop, in one of the Rorbuer where coffies were pulled by an expert spanish hipster, and these were also good. They also had nice cinnamon scrolls.
Continuing in the direction of Svolvær, we looked into Ørsnes, hoping for a picnic spot. None to be found, but very nice place.
We knew there were picnic tables in Kabelvåg, so stopped there for lunch.
As it wasn’t time to check in yet, we continued through Svolvær, following the road along the main fjord to the north, until it curved around to the east, and we eventually came to the end of the road at a locality that google maps sometimes refers to as Liland, sometimes as Vagan Municipality. Very pretty too. On the way here we had diven past what seemed to be a well appointed (WC, paved paths) lookout point on a hill, so we made our way back in that direction. Along the way we turned off towards Sidpollnes kapel, which we had seen from the other side of the fjord, but we couldn’t reach it: the isthmus that it was on seemed to be proprietary, and there were no-access signs. The lookout was worth the stop though, not just because of the WC (which was odd, in that it had an automatic door mechanism that required a swipe with a magnetic-stripe card of any sort, but did not charge). From the lookout we had a commanding view of the northern end of the fjord, the kapel, and all the way south to the mouth and the open ocean. We could see three waterfalls, and patches of snow still nestled in high mountain valleys and crevices.
Checked back into the Svinøya Rorbuer, relaxed, and then had a really top-grade dinner at the restaurant. Probably the best that we’ve been to thus far, was the consensus.
It’s raining again, and the wind is really up now. Whistling around some of the windows in this old shack. Hope the flight out is OK tomorrow afternoon.
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