Day 10 - We Find A Troll

26 Aug

Not a lot to report today. We set a target of 400km for our next overnight stop. We had a couple of route choices. Either turn inland and use the mostly main roads (toll roads) or stay with the coast, three ferries and about three hours extra. The night before it was clouding over and light rain, so we made the decision to use the first option and forgo the coast.

Sure enough there was rain overnight. This firmed our decision on which route to take. For the whole day it has been overcast and raining in places and pretty cold outside the car.

We started out on an alternate route to the main road.  It got a little narrow in parts.  Passing an oncoming van, both going quite slow, the proximity alerts were going off for both sides of the car.

Yep, semi-trailers use this road too.  Luckily, when we did meet one it was in a wider part.

The main road route still took us past a couple of lakes/fjords, one of which we pulled up beside to have what's becoming our late morning cup of coffee and a bit of a walk around.

Nice lakes and fjords

Sometimes it is hard to tell which is which

Coffee time by the lake at 10C air temp

A bit further along we turned off to what looked to be a fishery. The premises was closed for the season but we did meet their troll. He wouldn't let us in.

Charleen asked nicely, but he didn't open the gate

The Volvo needed some fuel. 15NOK per litre. That worked out to around AUD $2.40 per litre.  It seems to be getting more expensive as we head further north.

We crossed from one county into another. This has been a regular occurrence, but this time the border at North Norway was rather impressive. We haven't crossed into the Arctic Circle as yet. Wonder what sort of fanfare there will be there if this is anything to go by.  That should be tomorrow.

Welcome to Nord Norge (North Norway)

Our stop for the night is Mosjøen (pronounced Mooshun) which is located at the end of a fjord, nestled between steep mountains. 

As we arrived mid-afternoon we were hopeful of doing some laundry. No luck! The hotel has a washing machine, but we need a dryer as well. It was suggested that we try the camping place on the outskirts of town. We drove there only to find out their dryer had broken down. Being Saturday afternoon, the laundromat in the city centre is closed.

We took the opportunity to have a drive around the “sentrum”. Not a lot happening here, it's a quiet place on Saturday afternoon.

A nicely preserved old servo.

Mosjøen has an airport. It looked like there had been a lot of fill dropped in place to make the landing strip.

So back to our room to do a bit of hand washing. Fingers crossed the warm bathroom will dry the few needed items.