Safe Return Doubtful

I had expected others at Bremnessanden beach on Melöy with it being a Friday. The guy I met yesterday at the lake said it was a popular place, it was easy to see why.

Late in the afternoon a woman arrived with her three young sons, 6, 4 and 2 years old. They played on the beach for a while, then as the evening went on, they put a tent up on the headland. The woman came over to say that she hoped the children wouldn’t disturb me. I reassured her that they would be no bother at all. As the boys played in the sand later in the evening we shared a beer. They lived in Bodø and she said with the heat this last week she was just desperate to get away.

I saw her the following morning and she said she hadn’t slept much, the boys were too excited. I can imagine that, it is a big adventure for them at their age.

Later on the Friday evening another car arrived with two couples, who also put a tent up. I was watching sport until late, but I looked outside just after midnight and they were playing frisbee on the beach in bright sunlight. It is a whole new culture this midnight sun.

I asked an older guy how he managed with it the other day, and he told me that locals just sleep in winter.

After a beach morning on Friday we left, took the lunchtime ferry back to the mainland, and drove north for an hour or so to the Inndyr peninsula, where I looked around for somewhere for overnight. There is a hike here that I was keen to do.

There was a music festival on in the town with and parking was directed to the sports facilities. I had originally thought to stay at the hiking car park just out of town, but it was so warm and humid that there were very many flies around. Instead, I parked up with a few other motorhomes and vans at the sports centre.

It seemed a very sociable place; within an hour three older people, two on mobility scooters came over for a chat. It wasn’t until later I realised I was in the assisted living car park for the elderly. That might amuse, but it’s actually something I’ve done three times in recent years. When cycling in Norway in 2016 I finished the day at what I thought was a hotel, it used to be, but was actually residential living for the elderly – I was invited to stay anyway. In the Pyrenees last spring I thought I had found an ideal little place, but some men and women in white coats came over to tell me it was the grounds of a centre for elderly dementia sufferers, but they weren’t bothered, and I stayed.

The weather remains fine, even hot yesterday and today, up around 26C. There is some rain in the forecast later in the week, but there has been in recent weeks also, and it has never materialised. With that in mind, I started the hike up to Høgfjellknubben just after 10 am, with most of the 350 metre ascent still in shadow. The trail is in the trees until above 300 metres, but on emerging from them, the view is amazing.

The flies did join me for the descent though, the pesky, harmless, but bothersome blow or house flies, a larger variety of horse fly than we have in the UK that are slow but give a sharp nip, and a few mosquitoes, though nothing like further inland. There was hardly any wind, so very little to deter them.

From the lake back to the car park, just a couple of kilometres, I walked with a lady who was local, but had moved here as a refugee from Myanmar 13 years ago. Her husband was killed in conflict in 2010, many refugees fled to Thailand and China, but she, along with her two young daughters, was just one family of ten, that were taken in by Norway.

I had half a mind to leave when I got back to the van, but the place I was in was much better than I had originally thought.