Rystad - Hamnøy

After breakfast we pack everything up again, as we are used to from our Sweden trip, and clear out the little cabin. Practised as we are, we get this done rather quickly and can leave the little house and the campsite on time. Unfortunately the weather still isn’t much better, but it is supposed to turn nice towards the afternoon! We continue towards the south of the Lofoten to our next accommodation in Hamnøy. On the way we make many stops to enjoy the landscape. We are back on our familiar E10 road, which is almost the only road here, by the way. The road runs along the coast with views of the sea and mountains.

On the way we see more sea eagles in the sky hunting for prey. Near Eggum we pass an old Viking house that now houses a museum. The so-called longhouse was partly restored and rebuilt. But we decide not to go into the museum, as we still have a beautiful stretch ahead of us. We take a few detours to see even the most remote villages. Our first stop is at “Skagsanden Beach”, a sandy beach where the Lofoten Beach Camp is also located, where we once planned to spend the night. Swimming weather is not on the cards, though. It is very cloudy and rains on and off. Despite the low temperatures there are a few surfers and kayakers who venture into the sea (in thick wetsuits, of course).

The rainy weather has something good about it anyway. We have rarely seen so many and such intense rainbows as on this day. We are glad to get back into the warm car and drive on to “Rambergstranda”, a white sandy beach in Ramberg.

We walk along the sea for a bit and go into the Lofoten Store in Ramberg. Before we drive on to the east coast, we make a detour to Fredvang. We cross two beautifully situated bridges to reach the village. We drive to a viewpoint with a view of a beach and mountains all around. Here too we are greeted with a rainbow. We explore the area some more and again see a sea eagle circling above us.

With lots of new photos we drive to our actual destination for today. Hamnøy lies in the south of the Lofoten and is a small fishing village. Today it is known for its beautiful location and, because of the combination of sea, mountains and red fishing cabins, is a classic photo motif of the Lofoten.

We are very happy to be able to spend 5 nights here. The little houses of the “Eliassen Rorbuer” complex are named after their founder, Mr Eliassen. Over 150 years ago he founded a small fishing village here together with a friend. At that time it was the most important fishing village of the Lofoten. Naturally they lived from catching stockfish, which they sold. They caught up to 145,000 tonnes of stockfish in a year. When the annual catch became smaller, Eliassen came up with the idea of renting out the fishing cabins. From then on they lived not only from fishing but also from tourism. To this day the fishing cabins are rented out. And we are lucky enough to live in one of these traditional fishing cabins. We have a view of the harbour and the famous mountain of Hamnøy. Right next door there is an exhibition about Hamnøy in a barn, with pictures from the old days. We look around and go to the famous photo spot on the bridge right by Hamnøy. From there we have a view of the red fishing cabins, the mountain and the sea. Annina has a 3000-piece puzzle at home with exactly this motif. We enjoy the view and busily take photos. We come back to this place for sunset as well, because finally the sun shines here for once!

Hamnøy bathed in sunlight looks beautiful. At this point, however, we don’t yet know that it could look even more beautiful… In the evening we have rice with an Indian sauce and salad. We eat with a view of the harbour and watch the seagulls. But the day is not over yet. Of course we keep checking the northern lights forecasts, because from around September it is possible to see northern lights in the sky. The probability of seeing northern lights today is 18%. It gets dark rather late here, but we stay awake so as not to miss the chance of northern lights, because tonight it isn’t so heavily clouded. We wrap up warmly, take our cameras and tripods and go to the bridge to keep a lookout. We ourselves don’t see anything unusual at first, but our cameras can clearly capture northern lights, at first very faint, but then more and more clearly, until the cloud cover clears more and more and reveals a sky full of stars. And then at last we can also make out the green dancing lights in the sky. We watch the natural spectacle from the bridge and can hardly believe our luck. A weasel also visits us on the bridge to see the northern lights.

When the light gets weaker again, we want to return to the warmth, frozen through as we are, but right by our cabin at the harbour the most beautiful and strongest northern lights appear. There is less light pollution here, so we can see the lights even better. The sky glows green and the lights dance above us and across the whole sky.

This experience is clearly one of the most beautiful things we have ever experienced. Happy and completely frozen, we return to our little house after 2 a.m. and warm up with a hot soup before going to sleep.