Day 55 – to Kråfjellet, above Ballangen

Bardufoss is a service town on the E6, the main arterial road north south, situated roughly midway between Nordkjosbotn and Narvik. It has a huge motorhome / caravan sales outlet, as big as I’ve seen. It seems a lot of Norwegians have them. These days, especially here where the are no many wild stopover opportunities, they are an alternative to a holiday cabin. There’s noticeably a lot of them on the road at weekends.

But you don’t need to wander very far from any town up here to be in the wilderness, and that was the case today. There’s a newly built floodlit cross country ski circuit, and the track I wanted was behind that.

And there was sunshine, though it is low in the sky these autumnal days so the solar power it gives the van is more limited.

Once above the treeline there were exceptional views. There’s a rough road to the peak, Ristafjell, and for a while I contemplated bringing the van up. It would make a great park up.

Bardufoss is the home of the Royal Norwegian Air Force, and the site of a large military base. UK Royal Naval Commando and Royal Marine units have used Bardufoss as a training base for many years. It is also used as a base for cold weather training for Royal Air Force, British Army and Royal Navy helicopter crews.

There was the option of a sauna at the sports complex I was parked at, which was a more attractive option to my outdoor van shower. It was quiet, but I did a meet a couple of interesting people.

A Norwegian guy who was working in fishing, but in his early 40s he had had so many jobs, that it may qualify for some sort of a record, and all over the world. He had actually worked in Queenstown at the same time I lived there, on a sheep farm. He was about to recommend me a place to ride my bike, near Flam between Bergen and Oslo, where he been working for a friend, driving bikes around. I realised he meant the Rallavegen, one of the most famous mountain bike rides in the world, out of Finse, and it’s glacier. This is where I led two groups when I was working in Lytham, probably 2008 and 2009. Memorable experiences, and incredible riding.

The other guy was South African, from Pretoria, saunaing while his son and friend were in the swimming pool. Back in University days, in Copenhagen, he had married a Norwegian woman. I can’t imagine such a different climate and culture between Pretoria and Tromso, where he now lived. They had a cabin close by, where they spend weekends. It wasn’t long until our conversation got onto sport. He said it had been several years since he had spoken face to face to anyone about rugby and cricket here in Norway.

My next destination is a 5 hour drive away, so I decided to split it, and do half of it today, while listening to Lancashire in the 50 over final on the radio.

I wasn’t sure where to stay, but at 5 pm I was done, wanting to watch the second half of Premiership rugby. I struck lucky, leaving the E6 at Ballangen, and following a single track road between farms to the west, in green rolling hills. I came across parking for hiking on Håfjelltuva mountain massif. It was ideal, and provided a splendid venue for a half hour out just before dark, in a rain shower with a sunlit fjord below.