Norway Nordland By Motorcycle - Heading To The Artic Circle

Good morning from Grong. It's a wonderful day here in Norway once again and the plan for today is that we're going to head as much north as we can. We're currently here in Grong where we stayed last night and we're going to head all the way north on route 17. We've got a few ferries to catch here and here. The main destination or the main ferry we're going to go for is Horn and then we're going to see how much more north we can get. But according to locals this route 17 to the coastal road is one of the most spectacular roads in all of Norway. So join us today as we head north. Okay so we are just turning on to route 17 and starting the journey north. Yeah looking forward to this one. Heard a lot of good things about this route. How many kilometers will we be on this road Sean? Until the next like direction. The next 54 kilometers. Yeah i think it is at 54 does it say on the sat nav? Yeah it does yeah. But i think we stay on the 17 a lot longer than 54 kilometers. Yeah i think the first ferry might be in 54. That's what i'm thinking. Oh okay yeah. Which is a good stopping point if people have been on the road for a good good hour and a bit. Yeah they are nice little stop the ferries. We quite enjoy them don't we? We're riding past our first fjord of the day which is Vege... Foldsve... no no. Foldsvegen is the next little town i think. Oh it is Indrefolder is the name of the... oh it's a lake. It's a very high steeped side lake. Could easily be mistaken for a fjord. Whatever it is it's absolutely stunning. Great way to start the day and we're making good time and good progress. We still have what is that an hour 40 to our first stop of Gron. And then we'll be right up back and near the coast again though won't we? Yeah. Yeah that's good. Looking forward to getting back to the coast. I've had enough of these trees for now and a little break up the trees i think. Change of scenery. This is the Folderbrouw bridge. What a spectacular view from this one. It seems like there hasn't been a day in Norway where we've not been rewarded with these beautiful lake views. It's amazing isn't it? It's stunning. Just the way that the sun as well today is bouncing off the lake and fjord water is something special. And we're straight into another tunnel. Sounds good in here. That's a nice one isn't it? It is. A little bit of a beach here on the side. Yeah it was white sand. It smells so like the sea. It does doesn't it? It must be. It must connect. beaming down on it. It's like green shores. It's beautiful and it's so clear. It is isn't it? They look so much different when the sun comes out. I think you're gonna get a little view of it. Mounting at 12 o'clock. It is actually isn't it? It's towering above the others. Another spectacular view from Norway. I think the reason we could smell the salt is that's the Norwegian sea there. So is this the Lysfjord? Lysfjord. Wow I've heard of that. It's definitely living up to it. I don't know how often the ferries come around here. You know I think as we get more north they're a little bit less frequent. So we do need to keep that in mind. Ah yeah. Makes sense doesn't it? Because they're not so busy. Yeah. Wow look at the mood you're on. It's amazing. What a nice boat that one is. Oh it is yeah. But these are still waiting. So they're doing some work to the dock area. It'll be lovely when it's finished. We are finally on the ferry to Venison. We caught it from home. We had quite a wait. I think it was about 40 minutes to think I'm. Yeah the boat was there but it wasn't quite as long as we thought. There is a reduced service on Saturday so that's something to keep in mind. But I'm not sure if there was another issue because like a captain arrived in a car so maybe. Anyway we're on the boat so all is good. It's a beautiful ferry ride over as well. We've got fjords and mountain peaks all around us which is really lovely. Yeah it's fantastic. And then I think we're going to do a little bit of a different route now we know because there were six ferries on the route north. So Sean's found an alternate. Yeah one of the last well the next ferry that we would have got the last one after that was it would have been tomorrow so it's actually not possible to do that route all in one day especially on a Saturday. Maybe it is in the week. Yeah but after we get on to the mainland here we're gonna take the road a little bit east and head into another national park. Which I think will be nice because it's a bit of a change of scenery again. Yeah I don't think you can go wrong whichever route you pick here in Norway. So yeah that's the plan there. We're gonna head in east a little bit before the road swings around back again and we'll be heading north before we know it again. Yeah I think we just need to slow down as well a little bit. We're a bit rushed and we need to just enjoy here. We're always like next destination, next destination. Yeah it's gonna take a little bit of time go a bit slower through this region and enjoy as we like make our way up to Boho. Boho? I think Boho. Yeah for the Lofton Island. Yeah for the Lofton Island. That is one ferry we do need to get. Ready to go Sean? Yeah ready to go. He wants you to go when you can. Thank you. Well that was a quick disembarking. It was wasn't it? Goodness me. Took a long time to get on but get you off pretty quickly. That smells good doesn't it? That cafe. It does actually. Oh what a cute little place we've arrived in. Oh that's a nice cool breeze. We've taken off several layers on the ferry. We've stopped for a quick break. There are infinite places where you can stop here in Norway and every corner that we turn seems to be another beautiful lake and fantastic vista. The route we are taking at the moment is somewhere yeah we just the ferry that we just took there and the ferries that were going to take us further to these islands was the last one within an hour because it's Sunday and it's a super reduced service. So we drop down here and we're around about this region now and we're about to head back up north this direction and to Bodo. I think from here would be about a five hour ride so I'm not sure I don't think we'll do that all today because it's almost late afternoon now but we'll see how far we can get today and then if we can get to Bodo maybe tomorrow night we can either take the ferry to the Loftons the next day or perhaps we could even take a late ferry tomorrow night to the Lofton Islands and stay there. But we're going to head on and carry on north. I thought this was going to be a boring section when I looked at the map but nope it's another awesome road carved into the side of a rock. Look at that little house perched on the rocks there. It's so beautiful. I know we're in Sweden. Well I don't think we saw enough of Sweden to make a fair call on that one but that waterfall in Sweden was spectacular. I really like that one. And then the reindeers, that was good. But I think Norway with its coastline might just have the edge but we'll have to wait and see. So what's that the turn off for Sean? We just turned onto the E6 and we're heading to... I've forgotten the name of the place where we're heading now. Is it called like Mosunite? It's been with an M I remember. It did begin with an M yeah. He's in a rush. There we go Mosjön. 61 kilometers. All right then. And that's the road that's gonna help us pick up that coast road again isn't it? Hopefully yeah we'll see how we feel when we get there. I think it's a good plan. Yeah it's 4 30 now. Okay. Porter with us so we are independent today so we can stop where we want. We have found the perfect little camping spot. We've got a cabin for the night. We're in room 12 which is this one right here. It's dinner time at the hut and Emma's made a lovely dinner tonight. Yeah it was nice to have a bit more room in the kitchen. Yeah that's true isn't it? More than one pan. Yeah that was nice. So we've just made some uh we had some burgers. So we scored jackpot. Found some bacon in the coops here in Norway. Have vegan bacon in. And we're gonna tuck in and enjoy the view. Little lake view. This place was perfect. It was. It was yeah. 40? I think 40, 50 quid this one I think. Yes 650 Norwegian kroner and it's perfect. You don't have to put the tent up in the morning. Tent down even in the morning. Yeah. So dry it off. Notice the more north we're getting the less busy it is. Yeah it's so nice. Because further south when we were looking for places they were fully booked out and campsites were full to the brim. But this place, yeah they had rooms available and there's plenty of spaces for camping as well. So it's actually really quiet here at the moment. And we've put a laundry load on so it's all good. We're actually gonna smell good tomorrow which is nice. Yeah so we'll catch you all in a little bit after we've had dinner. Yeah let's tuck into this before it gets cold. It's about 10 o'clock here now. We've finished dinner, cleared up and we've been planning our route for tomorrow. So tomorrow we're going to head to Boda which is about a four hour ride away. And we're going to stop by for the Arctic Circle. There's actually a visitor centre there which marks the line on the floor where the Arctic Circle is. We tried to get the ferry to the Lofton Islands for around about four o'clock. However this one was fully booked so we're going to have to take the later one which is at 7 p.m. And it's a three hour crossing so yeah we're not going to land into the Lofton Islands till about 10 p.m. But we found a hostel that's really close by so as soon as we get off the ferry we can go straight there, check in and get some rest. And then we'll explore the Lofton Islands from there. So join us in the next episode as we go to the Arctic Circle and head to Boda to catch the ferry to the Lofton Islands.