Sorry no posts yesterday but we had some bad news. The prognosis for our friend who was recently diagnosed with cancer is not great. Despite everything he still remains positive and is hopeful the chemotherapy will help in some form or other. When you get news like this is sort of knocks you sideways. In a strange way it reconfirms that packing in work and enjoying life is the right thing to do. On the flip side, everything we are doing seemed rather trivial and insignificant given what our friend is going through.

I struggled to keep focused about our travels but hopefully, the simple summary and pictures show the beautiful places.

Yesterday

In a dazed state….we took the dogs for a walk around the fishing harbour and up to the war memorial. Perched on a hill right at the end of the harbour and over looking the man made stone entrance. Back in Vin and we slow meandered our way back to the main town. A quick stop at the supermarket to ditch all the recycle plastic bottles and tin cans in exchange for a few bits of shopping.

We parked Vin on a great picnic spot car park, which overlooks the coastline and surrounding countryside. Over the course of the day, more and more campers turned up, so come early evening it was rather busy.

Our view from Ner Hag

We went for a ride on Eor around to Stamsund and Ure. Both beautiful places albeit rather overcast.

Our wild camping spot today, an elevated picnic spot at a village named Ner Hag.

Our wild camping spot

GPS position N068.157843 and E013.692393

Route: Ballstad to Ner Hag

Weather: Low 10 and high 16, rather a dull and miserable day, a bit like our mood.

The quiet life

Today

Woke to lovely blue skies, so where better to head to than the beach. We bobbled around the headland, down some windy roads, over a few hilly bits and hey presto, a beautiful white sandy bay. It was beautiful and really hard to imagine we were in Norway. But for the green hills and sheep, you would think you were in the Caribbean.

Haukland Beach

Craig went in to the garage and luckily spotted the hydraulic hinge was loose. Upon further inspection he could see they had used the wrong screws, so exiting holes useless. Unfortunately, the holes were in an awkward place, so not an easy fix. Craig spent the rest of the afternoon repairing the hydraulic arm whilst I took Mac n Tosh for a walk on the beach. They had a great time running around, chewing seaweed and swimming. They absolutely loved playing in the sea, which is a new one for us as our last miniature dachshund hated water. After several hours of splashing around and then covering themselves nose to tail in sand they were throughly shattered…and stunk like a wet fish.

Wall of green and lots of sheep

To help cheer our mood we fired up the BBQ and tested out the Norwegian Chops! The supermarkets have these huge, sorry no, gigantic pork chops that are actually really good value for money. They were delicious and tasted more like gammon than pork with a slight smokey flavour. All dished up with a corn on the cod, a few king prawns, a sausage and a few wedges…plus a few tasty morsels for Mac n Tosh.

Our Dutch neighbours are lovely and we had a good chat with them. Sharing places to visit as they are heading south and we are heading north. A few days ago they were out in their kayak when two Orca whales came right passed them. They were telling us the story when we noticed a large group of people head to the shoreline. Way out to sea we could just make out two orca fins cruising around the rocks. No doubt in search of food, maybe seals in the area?

Our wild camping spot today, Haukland beach car park with great 360 views.

GPS position N068.199322 and E013.529333

Route: Ner Hag to Haukland

Weather: Low 8 and high 21, a chilly night but the gusts blew away the clouds to leave glorious blue skies.

Life’s a beach. You can see Vin on the right