***  NORWAY  2014   -  WEEKS 4~5  ***

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CAMPING IN NORWAY 2014 - Trondheim, E6 north to Mo-i-Rana and Bodø, crossing the Arctic Circle on Saltjell, and Skutvik for ferry to Lofoten Islands:

Moving north towards Trondheim:  after our truly memorable if chill period in the mountains of Jotunheimen and Dovrefjell, today we should begin the next phase of the trip moving north to the coast; and this morning we heard the first cuckoo of the year. The spectacular E6 road across Dovrefjell continued towards Trondheim down into the precipitous-sided defile of Drivdalen, with the railway line running along a shelf in the narrow confines of the gorge on the far side of the river torrent (see left). At the northern end of the pass, the valley sides opened up into broader farming country leading to the small town of Oppdal whose residents we had joined last week for their National Day celebratory procession up at Hjerkinn on Dovrefjell. How warm the Spring air in the valley felt as we descended from the still wintry high mountainous terrain. The Trondheim railway continued to parallel the E6, following the line of valleys through pine-forested rolling hill-country, and gradually the terrain broadened into lowland farming country and small outlying towns as we approached the outskirts of Trondheim. Traffic inevitably increased as we turned NE around the ring-road through the city's conurbation, clocking up more tolls passing through more Autopass 'bomstasjons'.

Click on the 3 highlighted areas of map
for details of Trondhein and NW Norway

From the E6, we turned down to Vikhammer Camping on the Trondheim fjord shore-line, our base for visiting the city. The campsite reception was welcoming and had responded to our earlier email enquiry about buses, but the camping area was sordidly unkempt, seemingly full of semi-derelict static caravans with little space for visitors, and the air filled with the noise of passing trains, aircraft, revving cars and rowdiness of resident migrant workers. But it was a convenient base for visiting Trondheim with ready bus access into the city, and we found a corner space to settle in overlooking the fjord. The air temperature down at the coast was a balmy 25°, and our first priority was to change out of our arctic gear! But the noise levels made us long to be back in the peace and chill of the mountains. The evening's highlight was a superb sunset across the fjord (see left) (Photo 1 - Sunset across Trondheim Fjord).

First day in city of Trondheim:  facilities at Vikhammer Camping were kept spotlessly clean by the caretaker Eva, a delightful Hungarian lady from Szeged on the River Tizsa. She insisted on providing us with information to help our visit to Trondheim and was elated to hear that we had visited her native city; she was clearly an educated lady who spoke several European languages including fluent English and had insisted her children received good education in England. A lovely lady with a warm personality who took such a pride in her work, we really appreciated our chats with her and on our last morning she brought us a whole plateful of her freshly baked savoury scones called pogácsa in Magyar. She really was an asset to the campsite and we hoped the owner duly appreciates that.

Trondheim's history:  the #38 bus runs regularly from Hommelvik along the coast past Vikhammer into Trondheim, and although even seniors' ticket (honnør) prices are expensive at 25 NOK per journey, the bus dropped us at Dronnings gata in the city centre. With just 160,000 residents, Trondheim is Norway's 3rd largest city after Oslo and Bergen. Originally called Nidaros (meaning mouth of the Nid River), the city gained the name Trondhjem (pronounced Trond-yem) since late medieval times. But in the early 20th century in a fit of Norwegian nationalistic pride, the newly independent government tried to revert to the name Nidaros, provoking outraged protests from Trondhjemers. A compromise was duly reached with the name Trondheim. The city's origins go back to 997 AD when the Viking King Olav Tryggvason moored his longship alongside a sandbank at the mouth of the Nid River and established a farming settlement on the triangular peninsula of land formed by the river's meander. In 1030, Olav Haraldsson founded the cathedral at Nidaros, having with ruthless zeal imposed Christianity on the country and incurred the opposition of pagan landowners. They aligned themselves with Olav's rival, Knut king of Denmark and England, and killed Olav at the Battle of Stiklestad. Desperately needing a local hero to bolster its failing credibility, the early Norse church canonised Olav, martyred it was claimed for his Christian beliefs; his remains were interred in Nidaros Cathedral which soon became a centre of pilgrimage. The cult of St Olav lasted until Norway's subjugation by the Danish kingdom and imposition of Lutheranism with the 1537 Reformation. Trondheim had been Norway's royal and religious capital until 1217 with the archbishops becoming rich and powerful. The city had developed and prospered as a trading centre on the wedge of land in the Nidaros estuary, but the medieval wooden city was destroyed by fire in 1681. The Danish governor commissioned a Luxembourg military engineer Caspar de Cicignon to rebuild the city on a grid plan with broad avenues as fire-breaks, and this design survives to give the city centre the open feel seen today. Colourful wooden warehouses along the banks of the Nid bear witness to Trondheim's mercantile wealth. In WW2 the German invaders made Trondheim their main northern naval base, and the battleship Tirpitz was anchored at Fættenfjord just to the north. Trondheim managed to survive without major war damage, and today is a lively university city.

A walk around the old centre:  the central broad avenue of Munke gata led along the spacious main square of Torvet with its statue of the city's legendary founder Olav Tryggvason perched high on his stone column in full Viking chain mail and holding sword and orb, the symbols of royal power (see above right) (Photo 2 - Torvet with Olav Tryggvason's statue). Present day Trondheimers and young students on bicycles passed by indifferently. Nearby the sturdy-towered small church of Vår Frue Kirke (Our Lady's Church), dating from 1207 is the only one of the original foundations to have survived the 1681 great fire (see below left) (Photo 3 - Vår Frue Kirke (Our Lady's Church) of 1207). We turned into the pedestrianised Nordre gate, one of the original Viking settlement's main streets and now the modern city's shopping street (see above left). The trees now almost in full leaf gave the thoroughfare a pleasant air along with its shoppers and buskers (Photo 4 - Trondheim's Nordre gate). Along at the far end of Olav Tryggvason gate, we shopped for supper at a local fish merchants and the old fish market of Ravnkloa, and sat to eat our lunch looking across the fishing harbour (Photo 5 - Trondheim's fishing harbour).

Trondheim's Hjemmefront Museet (Resistance Museum):  with the Cathedral closed this afternoon for a ceremonial service attended by King Harold and Queen Sonja to commemorate the completion of the organ restoration, we walked along to the free-entry Hjemmefront Museet (Resistance Museum) whose main displays describe the carefully planned German invasion of Norway in April 1940 with concerted sea-borne and aerial attacks on Oslo, Kristiansand, Trondheim and Narvik, and subsequent Norwegian opposition to the occupation. An outpost of the equivalent Oslo Museum which we had visited earlier, the Trondheim museum was organised around a number of themes: Quisling's radio broadcast announcing his take-over of government, life under the 5 year occupation, and the development of organised resistance. One display was devoted to the resistance hero Leif Larsen's abortive attempt to tow the Royal Navy 2-man human torpedoes up Trondheim Fjord behind his fishing boat Arthur to attack the Tirpitz at her Fættenfjord anchorage. Another display included an enigma encoding machine (see right). What particularly commended the Trondheim museum was its more frank treatment of the issue of Norwegian collaboration and the number of Norwegians who volunteered both to work for the Germans and be recruited into the SS to fight Bolshevism on the Eastern Front as the propaganda posters urged. Another display was devoted to Henry Rinnan, the infamous and sadistic Trondheim collaborator whose gang cooperated with the Gestapo to betray, imprison, torture and murder several 100s of Resistance members; he was executed for treason in 1947. A memorial hall commemorated the 1,300 men and women of Central Norway killed during WW2.

Natural History and Archaeology Museum:  our next visit was to the Natural History and Archaeology Museum run by Trondheim University, and again commendablly free-entry (the best museums usually are!) where our interest was in the section devoted to Trondheim's post-Viking age foundation and its Medieval period of development up to the 1681 great fire. The museum's displays with well-researched, multi-lingual commentaries included many of the archaeological finds covering aspects of life in the medieval city, including the Kulisteinen from 1034 engraved with both a Christian cross and runic inscription from the transitional period from pagan to Christian religion. The quaintly named Kalvskinn gata led to the 1705 octagonal wooden Hospital-kirke in the gardens of Trondheim's hospital, which according to its plaque dated back to the city's original foundation. In this older part of the town, narrow streets were lined with attractive wooden houses with clap-board frontages painted in pastel shades (Photo 6 - Trondheim's old wooden houses); this led us back into Prinsens gate and Kongens gate where trams trundled past.

Trondheim's medieval remains and mercantile prosperity:  back along through Torvet, where bright afternoon sunshine now lit Olav Tryggvason's statue, we found the city library in Kongens gate where the excavated remains of the 12th century St Olav's kirke are displayed under the main entrance hall. Snorre Sturlasson, the Icelandic chronicler in his Olav the Holy Saga reports that the church was built on the spit where Olav's body was hidden on the night of his death at Stiklestad before being buried further along the river where the Nidaros Cathedral now stands. Excavations under the library revealed parts of the church and graveyard with the skeletal remains of 3 adults and an infant now displayed in the ruins under the library's forecourt.

Reaching the river's grassy embankment in Kjøpmanns gata (Merchants Street), we could look across to the brightly painted wooden 18th century gabled warehouses (see above left) supported on timber stilts which lined the far bank of the Nidelva river (Photo 7 - 18th century wooden warehouses). Crossing the Gamle By Bru (Old Town Bridge) (see left), we took the opportunity to photograph the warehouses lit by bright afternoon sun from the vantage point of the wooden footbridge (Photo 8 - Trondheim's Gamle By Bru). Across on the far side of the river, a river-side pub was simply too much of a temptation after a long and rewarding day of plodding the city streets. We treated ourselves to glasses of local Trondheim pils from Dahl's brewery, sitting in the late afternoon sunshine watching the boats go by (see right), before returning to the centre to catch our bus for the half hour ride back out to Vikhammer Camping.

2nd day in Trondheim - the Hurtigrute coastal express:  waiting at the bus stop for our morning bus into the city, we enjoyed another memorable encounter with James from Entebbe, a Ugandan who was studying nursing here in Trondheim. He described how his father, a major in the Ugandan army had survived the Idi Amin years and was now a pastor working with Ugandan soldiers. A charmingly gentle lad, he spoke of missing his family and hoped to bring his mother for a holiday in Norway since she could not believe that people could walk on snow and ice! We got off the bus at the Bakke Bru and set off in bright morning sunshine towards the harbour to wave off the north-bound Hurtigrute coastal express. During previous visits to Northern Norway, we had regularly made a point of seeing the ships which for over 100 years have sailed daily between Bergen and Kirkenes, calling at isolated coastal communities and providing not only a unique tourist service but an essential year-round delivery lifeline of both freight, supplies, mail and passengers; see Hurtigruten web site and our 2012 log of seeing the Hurtigruten at Berlevåg and Kjøllefjord Trondheim is a key staging point on the Hurtigruten schedule, and the daily north-bound ship departs at noon. Following passengers returning to the Hurtigruten quay, we walked around to the dockside where M/S Midnatsol (Midnight Sun) stood waiting to depart (see left) (Photo 9 - Hurtigrute coastal liner M/S Midnatsol). Fork-lift trucks buzzed busily around moving pallets of every kind of cargo for loading into the ship's conveyor down into the hold: stacks of tyres, oil drums, large packages of hardware, but no foodstuffs or consumables at this stage of the route. Cars were driven aboard including a new pick-up destined for some northern destination, and we photographed the loading operation of freight for the Hurtigrute to transport to isolated northern ports (Photo 10 - Loading freight on the Hurtigrute). Coaches brought passengers back for re-boarding after their sight-seeing trip into Trondheim, and as noon approached, the ship's horn sounded a lengthy warning of imminent sailing. Lines were cast off, and M/S Midnatsol eased away from her berth to move out into the main channel, dwarfing a lone fisherman who sat unmoved with his line at the end of the pier (see right). Gathering pace, the Hurtigrute set off down the fjord to resume her 'rapid route' northwards as we waved farewell. Maybe we shall see M/S Midnatsol again as we ourselves journey up to the northern parts of Troms and Finmark.

A walk through Nedre Elvehavn and Baklandet:  crossing the Verftsbru footbridge (see left), decorated in tastefully Scandinavian style with planters of scented pansies, we reached the former shipyard and industrial workshop area of Nedre Elvehavn which closed in the 1990s and is now filled with popular waterside bars and restaurants busy in the bright lunchtime sunshine (Photo 11 - Trendy cafés of Nedre Elvehavn). Just 2 dockside cranes, retained as purely decorative pieces of industrial archaeology, were the only reminder of the Trondhjems Mekaniske Værksted shipyard which was once the city's largest employer. We crossed the bridge by the lock-gates of the former dock basin and returned past yuppy apartment blocks to the Bakkebru main city bridge to continued our ambling past the brightly painted wooden houses of the former working class district of Baklandet, now a trendy street of cafés and coffee shops. The cobbled streets showed further sign of Trondheim's characteristically cycle-friendly policies with lanes of smooth flagstones along the cobbles (Photo 12 - Cobbled streets of Baklandet). At several points, gaps and alleyways between the wooden houses led to balconies looking out over the river to the brightly painted timber warehouses which lined the opposite Kjøpmanns gata embankment (see right). This finally led us to the little square by Gamle By Bru which we had reached yesterday.

Trondheim's Nidaros Cathedral:  back across the footbridge, we walked up to Nidaros Cathedral whose apparently small size and grey stonework belie its reputation as Northern Europe's masterpiece of Medieval Gothic architecture (see left). Dedicated to St Olaf with its altar set over the saint's grave, the original stone Cathedral of Nidaros, the earliest parts dating from 1153 when Norway became a separate bishopric, has suffered several fires over the centuries along with the upheavals of the Reformation which robbed the Church of its riches. The original Gothic transept built around 1180 shows Anglo-Norman influences with many of the craftsmen and stonemasons brought over from England. The Cathedral's crowning glory is the magnificent west end façade and rose window (Photo 13 - West end façade of Nidaros Cathedral) which, although in the early Gothic style of the 13th century, in fact date from the 19th century (Photo 14 - Detail of west end façade). Along with its architectural rival at Uppsala in Sweden which we visited last year, Nidaros Cathedral claims the glory of being Scandinavia's largest medieval structure.

Entering the Cathedral's gloomy interior (see right) (Photo 15 - Nidaros Gothic interior), we examined the newly restored organ's consol with its 4 manuals and complex array of stops and couplers which was being tested by one of the organ builders. Having viewed the rose window at the western end of the nave (Photo 16 - Organ and rose window), we went to the east end to photograph the 14th century altar frontal painting hidden away in a small chapel off the ambulatory. Created at a time when few Norwegians could read or write, the cult of St Olaf had to be promoted pictorially; this altar painting is the oldest surviving representation of St Olaf's life, or rather his death at Stiklestad. The 3rd of the 4 panels showed Olaf being stabbed mercilessly by vengeful soldiers, his death being construed as Christian martyrdom and justification for canonisation. The 4th panel portrays church officials exhuming Olaf's uncorrupted body and declaring his sainthood (see right). What is not to be seen now is the object of medieval pilgrims' veneration, St Olaf's silver reliquary casket which originally rested under the Cathedral's altar; it was removed to Copenhagen after the 1537 Reformation and unceremoniously melted down for coinage.

Outside we sat awhile in the afternoon sunshine gazing up at the glories of the west end façade with its multiplicity of statuettes lined up in rows. From the Cathedral we ambled around through the parkland above the river embankment above the Nidelva's meander where students sunbathed or revised for exams in the warm Spring sunshine. The riverside path led us round behind the Cathedral back to the Gamle By Bru.

Trondheim's Trampe-Sykkelheis cycle-lift and the Kristiansten Fortress:  crossing the bridge once more, we faced the ultra-steep climb up the Brubakken hill to reach the Kristiansten Fortress. Cyclists tackling the hill have no such problems since the Trondheim authorities have provided the world's only cycle-lift, the Trampe-Sykkelheis, another of the cycle-friendly city's curiosities (Photo 17 - Trondheim's Trampe-Sykkelheis). This low-tech device consists of a powered footplate which rises up the hill within a metal groove set in the tarmac; cyclists sit on their bike with their left foot on the cycle pedal and right foot resting against the footplate which pushes them up the steep slope, providing that the cyclist can keep their balance! The secret is to keep the right leg outstretched and body tilted forward, as we observed from the regular users of the cycle-lift being propelled up the hill (see left). We unaided pedestrians trudged slowly up the slope, and at the top continued up past the pleasant wooden cottages of Baklandet to reach the Kristiansten Festning (Fortress). The fortress dates from after the 1681 great fire as defence for the re-built city. The surviving earth fortifications and stone redoubts give panoramic views over the city centre within the triangular peninsula enclosed by the Nidelv's meander, and the modern suburban conurbation spreading beyond. Up through the gate-house, we clambered onto the ramparts to photograph the views in the now hazy conditions (see right).

A refreshing conclusion to our visit to Trondheim:  returning downhill and across the Gamle By Bru footbridge, we made our way across the city centre for the last time, passing Olav Tryggvason's statue at Torvet. The climax of today's city explorations was to sample the produce of the Trondhjem Mikrobryggeri, a home-brew micro-brewery pub set in the heart of the city in an alleyway of Prinsens gate. Their unfiltered Trondhjems Pils was a gloriously tasty 4.5% pilsner, while their Porter was an equally tasty dark beer. Although not in such a distinctively picturesque setting as yesterday's riverside pub, the micro-brewery's beers made the mass-produced Dahls seem a insipidly third-rate product. Refreshed by this conclusion to the day, we made our way around to Dronnings gate for what we believed was the final bus journey back to the campsite at Vikhammer. After 2 superbly fulfilling days, helped by lovely sunny weather, we had become so well-acquainted with the old city centre and its northern outskirts as to feel ourselves honorary Trondhjemers.

Photographic disaster at Hell:  in pouring rain the following morning, we re-joined the E6 motorway heading north through the 4km long Hell Tunnel which emerges close to Trondheim airport and a turning to the quaintly named rail junction and village of Hell (meaning 'well-being' in Norwegian!). Unable to resist the temptation to take a brief look at Hell, with the rain still pouring we turned off and parked at the little station, with endless puns about the name and Hellish weather. Just managing to get one photograph of the station sign 'Hell - gods expedition' (Hell - have a good journey), disaster struck: Paul's camera lens jammed and no amount of turning or pushing would shift it. That's what happens when you go to Hell and try to take photographs, but wise cracks failed to fix the offending lens. The thought of facing the rest of the trip sans camera was unthinkable, and it was fortunate we were still within range of the city; there was nothing for it but to return to Vikhammer Camping and ask advice from the professional photographer who shared the premises about photographic shops in Trondheim. By 4-00pm we were back by bus into Trondheim city centre at Japan Foto in Munke gata; the lens was beyond repair and had to be replaced. We were back in business but the cost in Norwegian kroner did not bear thinking about! After an unexpected extra night at Vikhammer Camping, we returned to Hell in better weather the following morning to re-photograph in better light the station with its punning sign-board, even recording the times of trains to and from Hell. We could now say that we had been to Hell and that it did not always rain there (see right).

We were both putting our cameras to good use in photographing some of the characteristic flora and fauna during these 2 weeks, and have included a photo-gallery of Flora & Fauna of NW Norway

Tirpitz anchorage at Fættenfjord:  further north, E6 now a narrow single-carriage road very busy with traffic descends to the insignificant inlet of Fættenfjord, the innermost recess of Åsenfjord off Trondheim Fjord. The German battleship Tirpitz, sister ship of Bismark, had hidden away here during 1941~42 after her post-commissioning sea trials in the Baltic until she was moved north to Kåfjord in March 1943. The safe anchorage at Fættenfjord was protected from aerial attack by the surrounding hills and from naval attacks by coastal gun emplacements. A constant threat to Allied shipping, Tirpitz was continually observed by RAF photo reconnaissance Spitfires. Bombing missions failed to make any impact since at that time the RAF had no bombs big enough to pierce the battleship's armour plating, and bomb-aiming techniques were insufficiently accurate, resulting in major losses of aircraft and crews who were buried and commemorated at the CWGC cemetery in Trondheim.

A bizarre scheme was hatched up to attack Tirpitz in her anchorage at Fættenfjord using 2-man human torpedoes towed into Trondheim Fjord by the redoubtable Norwegian Resistance activist Leif Larsen behind his fishing boat Arthur, with the 'Chariots' naval crews hidden in a secret compartment behind a cargo of peat. In late October 1942 Operation Title was launched: Arthur sailed from Shetland across the North Sea to Norway towing the 2 RN Chariots. Larsen managed to bluff his way into the highly protected Trondheim Fjord and advanced to within 16kms of Tirpitz in Fættenfjord, but the mission was dogged by misfortune: Arthur suffered several engine failures, then when a storm brewed up both Chariots broke adrift from her mountings under the Arthur's keel and sank in the fjord's deep waters. The mission had to be aborted: Arthur was scuttled and Larsen, his 3 Norwegian crew and 6 Royal Navy divers and crew set off on foot over the mountains. All managed to escape across the border into neutral Sweden, except one British sailor, AB Evans who was wounded in a skirmish with a German patrol and left to be taken POW. He was later executed by the Germans, one of the war crimes cited against Dönitz at the 1945 Nuremberg Trials.

The E6 ran along the shoreline of Fættenfjord opposite the low cliffs where Tirpitz had been anchored. We turned off along a dirt track at the head of the fjord to find the memorial set up by local people in 1985 to commemorate RAF bomber and reconnaissance crews killed in 1942 missions against the battleship (see right) (Photo 18 - RAF Tirpitz attacks memorial at Fættenfjord). We stood at the dry end of the fjord looking along under low cliffs to the concrete remains that had formed Tirpitz's 1941~42 anchorage (see above left) (Photo 19 - Tirpitz's 1941~42 anchorage at Fættenfjord). We photographed the memorial and followed the dirt track steeply uphill above the fjord edge hoping this would give closer views of Tirpitz's anchorage, but this led only to boathouses where one of the contact mines that once protected Tirpitz was preserved. It would have been poignant to have camped here so close to Tirpitz's 1942 anchorage, but the little campsite at Fættenfjord was long closed and totally overgrown. With the weather now gloomy and rain pouring, we therefore left the head of the fjord, following E6 accompanied by the Bodø railway line steeply up a narrow defile, and just beyond Åsen reached Gulberget Camping; at 190 NOK/night including showers and wi-fi, this was a hospitably welcoming campsite in such wretched weather (see left); and the forecast was not much better for our onward northern journey.

Battle of Stiklestad - the significance of St Olaf for Norway:  continuing across broad, flat farming countryside, we passed Verdal a small industrial town set at the innermost head of Trondheim Fjord and in the distance could see the outline of shipyards which now fabricate rigs to support Norway's North Sea oil and gas industry. Just beyond, we turned inland to find Stiklestad, the legendary site of the battle on 29 July 1030 at which Olaf Haraldsson was killed. His 15 year old half-brother Harald Sigurdsson survived the battle and would go on in 1047 to become King of Norway, only to die at Stanford Bridge in Harald Håråda's failed invasion of England. We wanted to learn something of the complex military and religious power struggles of the late Viking Age which led to the Battle of Stiklestad and his subsequently canonisation as St Olaf, Norway's patron saint.

During the 9th century AD, Norway had been divided between several local Viking chieftain-kings, each controlling their own petty fiefdom. Harald Fairhair (Hårfagri) in military alliance with the Jarls of Lade in Trøndelag had managed to unify the kingdom briefly, but after his death his descendents spent the 10th century in warring power feuds. Religion also played a part in these power struggles as Håkon the Good and Olaf Tryggvason attempted by bloody force to convert the pagan Norwegians to Christianity. In 1015, Olaf Haraldsson, another of Harald Fairhair's descendents who had converted to Christianity during his childhood upbringing in England, returned to Norway to gain the kingdom. While his rival, Knut the Great of Denmark, was preoccupied with wars in England, Olaf with a peasant army secured the Norwegian throne. During his brief reign, Olaf with Christianising zeal forced the new religion on his subjects with a regime of brutal executions and torture, so alienating the major land-owning classes such as Dale Gudbrand whom we had met at Hunsdorp in the valley of Gudbrandsdalen that still bears his name. Olaf's hold on power lasted only until 1028: Knut in alliance with the Jarls of Lade expelled him and Olaf fled to Sweden. He managed to raise a small rag-tag army and re-crossed the mountains into the valley of Verdal in North Trøndelag to regain his throne. The Norwegian feudal landowners backed by Knut met him with a larger army at Stiklestad on 29 July 1030, where Olaf was killed in the battle.

In the subsequent power struggles, the early Norse church needed all the support it could muster to reinforce its hold on power. Olaf had been a brutally unsavoury character but rumours of his uncorrupted body when his coffin was opened for re-burial was sufficient grounds for sainthood along with his death in battle at Stiklestad construed as Christian martyrdom defending the beleaguered new religion. The cult of St Olaf conveniently provided the struggling Church with the perfect endorsement and legitimisation of its power - a God-sent Norwegian saint. Brutal and divisive in life, Olaf in death as saint and Christian martyr brought a unifying power to Norway: Olaf's illegitimate son Magnus forced Knut to yield the Norwegian throne, so securing the kingdom for Christianity; Olaf became Rex Perpetuus Norvegiae, bringing a century of prosperity and expansion lasting until Norway again descended into internecine power struggles in the 13th century, and finally fell under Danish domination. The Battle of Stiklestad symbolised Norway's passage from a bloody Viking past into its medieval future.

Our visit to Stiklestad:  6kms from E6 led through Verdal's industrial suburbs to what for Norwegians is still a popular symbolic cult centre of national identity, and as such is fully exploited by the modern mass tourism industry. Millions of kroner have been spent on a grandiose National Cultural Centre with admission prices of 140NOk to match. The surrounding area is laid out like a medieval theme park with pseudo-Viking farmstead-skansen and, most sordid of all, a huge outdoor amphitheatre where on each 29 July, St Olaf's Day and anniversary of the battle, Norwegian flock in their 1000s, paying extortionate prices to see a tacky dramatic re-enactment of events leading to Olaf's death in battle. Fortunately this early in the summer, the site was almost deserted as we walked over to the Kulturhus-cum-conference hotel in the vain hope that we could gain information without paying mega-kroner; all we got from the condescending receptionist was an arrogant sneer when we declined to part with money for a site plan.

We firstly walked over to the dignified 12th century Stiklestad church under whose altar the stone on which the dying Olaf leant is said to lay (Photo 20 - 12th century church at Stiklestad); today this beautiful medieval church stands with peaceful disdain towards all the nearby tacky commercial modernism (see above right). Having photographed the church in gloomy light from under its border of birch trees, we ambled up the hillside to where the monument to Olaf's death in battle erected in 1807 now stands rather forlornly on a hillock away from all the razzmatazz; its inscription claims it as the oldest such memorial. During the WW2 German occupation, the Quisling puppet regime it replaced with a Nazi monolith; the old memorial was secretly removed and restored after the war, and Quisling's replacement buried. In recent years there has been controversy about restoring this one. We continued over to the amphitheatre which allegedly seats 5,500 spectators on its wooden benches around the natural auditorium with an unlikely modern equestrian statue of the saintly hero presiding over all (Photo 21 - Stiklestad natural amphitheatre). Apparently Norway's leading actors vie for parts in the summer festival's dramatic performances, along with local people as extras for the crowd scenes. It all sounded tackier than the Eurovision Song Contest!

The Bølabua reindeer rock-engravings:  after a night's camp at the curiously named Soria Moria Camping, we resumed our northward journey the following morning, reaching the small town of Steinkjer which is set on the innermost reaches of Trondheim Fjord. The Germans bombed the town to total destruction in 1940, and Steinkjer had to be rebuilt after the war. This morning low cloud clung to the surrounding hills filling the air with fine misty drizzle. Rather than continue up the monotonous E6, we turned off onto the peaceful Route 763 which meanders along the southern shore of Lake Snåsavatnet through farmland and hills wooded with majestic pines and birches. The northern railway line runs parallel with the road on a precarious shelf along the steep-sided lake-shore, and had been the target of Resistance sabotage attacks in both 1940 to delay the invading Germans northward advance, and again in early 1945 to impede their retreat from Finmark; we passed several memorials to these brave resistance fighters. Some 30kms along the lake, we reached today's first objective, the rock engravings at Bølabua. Parking at the closed café with its small, peaceful camping-aire (another spot we should have like to camp had it been convenient to our route), and in gloomy light set off on the sign-posted path. The engravings had been created some 4,000 years BC by Neolithic peoples, traces of whose fjord-side dwellings had also been found. With land levels lower at that time, Lake Snåsavatnet was still connected directly to Trondheim Fjord. As we walked the 500m path leading to the archaeological treasures of the petroglyphs, the pine forest floor showed its own botanical gems: the low-lying, spiky-leaved plants of our dear old friend Bog Rosemary with its beautiful tiny pink globular flowers, most still in bud this early in the year, and we were soon down on hands and knees photographing them; we then spotted tiny Chickweed Wintergreen also still in bud and Wood Anemones, growing among the bright green new-leafed Bilberry plants with their salmon-pink pendant flowers and the lingonberry whose flowers were still in tight bud. We spent longer photographing this year's first major find of northern flora, so familiar from our last 2 years' Scandinavian trips than we did examining the rock-engravings.

Some 500m along the woodland path, we found the life-sized outline of a reindeer engraved with flint tools onto a high, sloping, water-smoothed rocky outcrop which provided perfect panels for Neolithic artistic expression. This first petroglyph was the most distinctly evident of the 4 ritualistic engravings at Bøla: the life-sized engraving of a reindeer was a perfect, naturalistic masterpiece, engraved by a Neolithic artist with a fine sense of form and beauty, and was remarkably well-preserved, the angle of the rock catching the light even in poor visibility (Photo 22 - Bølabua reindeer rock engraving). Water still cascaded from a fast-flowing torrent over parts of the outcrop, making the next engraving of a bear less evident and preserved due to repeated freezing and thawing of flood water washing over the engraving. Lower down on a flat slab, an information panel identified the position of the most distinctive of Bøla's rock-engravings, that of a skier. The chiselled groves making the figure's outline were badly weathered making it difficult to identify: the man is on skis with the engraving clearly showing the ski's bindings to his foot; the figure holds a ski pole and adopts a body position exactly as a modern skier would. He is depicted in natural size 148cms from the bottom edge of his ski to the top of his head, another wonderfully naturalistic piece of artistic expression. None of the Bøla engravings had been outlined with red paint as elsewhere, which although making it less easy to identify them, at least conserved their natural state. And the setting of the rock panels was equally impressive beside roaring cascades amid pine forests, next to the curving embankment of the railway line with its magnificent stone bridge arching 13m over the torrent. It was during the construction of the railway line in 1926 that the engravings had been discovered. Today had been another dual interest day of both historical and floral treasures in this lovely forest setting. But we also experienced this morning the first signs of another coming summer menace - the dreaded midges, hovering around our faces as we attempted to take photographs.

The E6 road north through Nord Trøndelag and welcoming Nyheim Camping:  re-joining E6 near the village of Snåsa with misty low cloud now wafting across the lake, we turned north on a good road rising through impressively hilly terrain, and descended to the road junction at Grong. The road west went to Namsos, and eastward Route 74 headed towards the Swedish border-crossing to Gäddede on the Wilderness Road where we had camped last year. We continued north on E6 which now became narrow and winding following the valley of Namdalen and the fast-flowing River Namsen. The forested hilly terrain opened out to give broad, spectacular vistas of distant snow-covered mountains giving a real feeling of truly moving north. But we still had some distance to drive to reach tonight's campsite near to the county border between North Trøndelag and Nordland, and there was little chance to stop and admire the frequent series of river rapids. Just beyond Namskogen, we reached Nyheim Camping, a small campsite with just 30 places and huts ranged along the riverside set on a terrace wedged between the E6 and the now broad and more peacefully-flowing River Namsen (see left). The lady-owner saw us arrive and welcomed us with quiet hospitality, volunteering a discounted early season price of just 200 NOK including showers and site-side wi-fi. Several of the huts were already occupied, the E6 providing a regular passing trade at this early time of the year. The air was really chill as we settled in, but the highly reliable Norway's Meteorological Institute weather forecast showed an improving prospect for the coming days. Although a dull evening, as we came further north there was now no period of darkness; although the sun set for a few hours between 11-00pm and 2-00am, it remained light all night. Nyheim Camping with its hospitable welcome, recently upgraded facilities and lovely setting on the banks of the quietly flowing wide River Namsen was a perfect place for a day in camp to catch up with mundane jobs and web-writing. And by late evening as the sky had finally cleared, it was as if the river's flow had been turned off for the night: the ruddy glow of late setting sun, and silhouetted reflections of riverbank trees and surrounding snow-covered mountains were reflected in the perfectly still waters of the wide river (see right).

E6 north past Lakforsen waterfalls to Mosjøen:  the following morning in bright sunshine we resumed our ever-northward journey, with the E6 generally a good if sometimes winding single-carriage road initially running alongside the fast-flowing River Namsen amid magnificent mountain terrain. Pine woods lit by morning sun and wispy birches scarcely in leaf-bud this far north covered the lower hill slopes, and distant higher snow-covered mountain peaks surrounded us. We passed the occasional hill farm and the Tine milk-tanker collecting their morning dairy production, and soon after crossed into the county of Nordland under an arched sign announcing 'Gateway to the North'. This highpoint marked the watershed between the south-flowing Namsen River and northward-flowing Vefsna which entered the sea-fjord at Mosjøen. The road continued over a bleak mountain plateau , passing a series of swollen river-lakes which reflected the vivid blue of the clear sky against the backdrop of snow-covered mountains; it was a glorious landscape. Just beyond the village of Sveningdal, we paused to photograph our first reindeer this year, a small herd of trim-looking animals grazing by the roadside. At Trofors, Route 73 branched off eastwards towards Tärnaby and Hemavan, and just beyond the farming village of Grane, we turned off to the Lakforsen Waterfalls, where the broad River Vafsna drops 16m in foaming rapids (Photo 23 - Lakforsen Waterfalls). The name meaning 'Salmon Falls' indicates that in season, the salmon leap up the falls to reach their spawning grounds. The lane led down to a café-souvenir shop immediately alongside the falls, with a large car park to attract the droves of summer tour-buses. We ignored this sordidly over-commercialised tourist trap and walked down the road for the more spectacular view looking up the river along the length of the surging cascades, before resuming our northward drive towards Mosjøen.

Excellent VW service:  driving north, we had earlier clashed George's near-side wing-mirror with an on-coming vehicle on a narrow bridge cracking the glass; before leaving Nyheim Camping, we used the campsite wi-fi to find details of VW agents in Mosjøen, Mo-i-Rana, Bodø and Tromsø, and telephoned ahead to the first of these towns to arrange to call in in the hope of fitting a replacement glass. Approaching the town outskirts, we turned off to find Hansens Bilversted the Mosjøen VW agent, but the issue of replacing the wing-mirror glass was not as straightforward as believed: the near-and off-side wing mirrors were of different shapes, and being British right-hand drive, George's were handed compared with Norwegian left-hand drive. The new part would have to be shipped from Germany and would take a week to deliver. As always however, the VW garage staff could not have been more helpful and immediately came up with a solution: he looked up the exact part number and suggested phoning ahead to the Tromsø VW agent on our behalf, asking them to order the part for us in readiness for fitting when we passed through Tromsø in 6 weeks time on our northward journey. The part was duly ordered to await our arrival for fitting. How's that for superb VW service, experienced consistently all across Europe! And as an added bonus to all this help, the garage staff tutored us in how to pronounce Mosjøen - more like Moosh-ern.

Our visit to Mosjøen:  with this solution to the cracked wing-mirror problem in place, and with thanks for such superb service, we drove into the centre of the small town of Mosjøen, set at the end of its fjord and overwhelmed by snow-covered mountains (see above right). Mosjøen had long been a small-time trading settlement wedged between outflow of the River Vefsna into the fjord and the surrounding mountains. But in the 1960s, a huge aluminium smelting plant was built here, dominating the northern side of the fjord-side town and providing much-needed employment (see right). We parked by the town centre and walked along the river-side to photograph the attractive wooden houses and colourfully painted small wooden warehouses of Sjøgata (see left) (Photo 24 - Fjord-side wooden warehouses at Mosjøen). Their original functionality was long gone and most were now converted to twee 'ateliers' or arty-farty souvenir shops. It was however a very attractive setting, and local youngsters sun-bathed and children played along the river shore in the Spring sunshine. At the far end of Sjøgata we found the TIC, where the patient lass rehearsed with us our pronunciation of Mosjøen, and looking across the fjord we photographed the not-unattractive aluminium plant and its mountainous backdrop. After stocking up with provisions at the Rimi supermarket, we continued north on E6.

Another superbly located campsite, Korgen Camping:  across farming hill-land, E6 passed exquisitely blue lakes backed by spectacular mountain peaks to reach the entrance to the newly engineered Korgfjell Tunnel which bores 8.6 kms through the high fells immediately south of Korgen. Emerging from the north portal, we turned off into the village, and some 800m beyond on the grassy banks of the River Røssåga, we reached Korgen Camping. The lady-owner had returned our telephone enquiry late last evening, and welcomed us hospitably. The campsite was largely deserted at this time of year, and in warm afternoon sunshine we pitched on the lush grass of the river bank. The fast-flowing waters swished and gurgled around a river-island overshadowed by the pine-covered hill opposite whose snow-capped craggy peak peeped out from above the tree-line. In weather like this, it was a gloriously peaceful spot to camp (see left). And the bird-life along the river was equally appealing: Golden Eye ducks, the male performing his peculiar cocking-his-head-back courtship display, a pair of Red Breasted Mergansers with their long orange bill, and small podgy Common Sandpiper flying fast and low along the river or wading in the shallows. The sun continued late but the evening grew chill; as we neared the Arctic Circle just north of Mo-i-Rana, the sun scarcely set now.

We woke to another warm, sunny morning and for the first time this trip were able to breakfast outside on the grassy river bank, to the accompaniment of birdsong and the gurgling river rushing by; it was a truly beautiful setting, but the problem with relaxing in the sunshine was that time passes quickly and it was noon by the time we were away. In the upper part of Korgen village, we found the memorial  topped with the communist red star to the 100s of Yugoslav POWs who had been worked or starved to death as slave labour by the barbaric Germans in WW2 building the road over Korgfjell. An information panel gave details of the prison camp here at Korgen. The high vantage point on the hillside gave a magnificent panorama across the Røssåga valley with our riverside campsite, Korgen village spread out below, and the surrounding circle of pine-forested fells and snow-covered mountain peaks; it was a glorious scene (Photo 25 - Korgen village). The river flows just a short distance from the now dammed Røssvatnet, powering 2 HEP generating  near Korgen plants, on its way to flow into Sørfjord near to Mo-i-Rana.

A visit to Mo-i-Rana:  with the railway running parallel the narrow E6 road wound around headlands northwards along the south shore of Ranafjord towards Mo-i-Rana which nestles at the head of the fjord hemmed in by snowy mountains. Reaching the centre, we parked by the Tourist Information Centre for a town plan and details of what we should see in Mo-i-Rana. Once a market town and port, Mo had been destroyed by German bombing in 1940 and re-built after WW2. The post-war Norwegian Labour government transformed Mo by building a huge steel plant in the town to help boost the economy of the devastated northern parts of the country. The town grew in size with the steel plant as the mainstay of its expanding economy employing 1000 workers. The economic decline of the late 1980s however caused the plant's closure, the loss of employment being a savage economic blow to Mo-i-Rana, but government aid encouraged its replacement with smaller scale high-tech industry.

Having got our bearings, we walked through an underpass at Mo's circular railway station building, past pastel-shade painted wooden houses down to the fjord shore-side. Trying to avoid seeing the ugly and incongruous Anthony Gormley's chunk of rock which passed for a statue of Havmann (Man of the Sea), we looked across to the distant dock cranes across the still waters of the fjord (see left). Nearby on the headland stood a tragic memorial to a local girl, one of the 70 teenagers who had been murdered at the Labour camp on the island of Utøya in July 2011 by Anders Breivik the lunatic terrorist. We followed a pathway around the shore-line leading to the conserved group of 19th century brightly painted wooden cottages on the headland of Moholmen, taking photographs in the bright morning sunshine as we ambled around the little headland's 2 lanes between the cottages (Photo 26 - Moholmen wooden cottages). Returning to the station as a freight train trundled past on its way north to Bodø, we continued up the quiet pedestrianised stepped main street of Jernbarnegata, pleasantly planted with birch trees, where local people went about their business and children walked from school (Photo 27 - Jernbarnegata, Mo-i-Rana's main street). At the top of the hill by the Rana Rådhus, we turned along to Mo church with its high pitched roof and onion dome (see above right), and searched the grave yard for the WW2 war cemetery. In a far corner we found a small separate group of graves, with a 1945 memorial topped by a red star with a list of names in Cyrillic script and communal grave of Russian POWs worked to death so far from home as slave labour building the Arctic road and railway. And alongside in an ordered row were the graves of 7 Scots Guards and 1 Royal Artillery gunner killed in May 1940 trying to stem the German advance north (see left) (Photo 28 - British war graves at Mo-i-Rana). The headstones were of dark local stone, not the usual white CWGC white limestone. We paid our respects and walked back down through the town. We liked Mo-i-Rana as a surprisingly pleasant town, struggling to revive itself despite the closure of its steelworks major employer.

Elvmøthei Fjellgård mountain-farm camp:  re-joining E6, in the northern outskirts of Mo we passed the now long-dead steel-works tucked into the hillside where the River Tverråga cascaded down a side-valley over waterfalls. At the road junction where the E12 'Blå Vägen' (Blue Road) cross-country highway came in from Tärnaby and Storumen in Sweden that we had driven last year, we continued north on E6 now a narrow road winding around headlands above the valley of the River Ranelva which flows down into Ranafjord at Mo. Despite the spectacular pine and spruce forested mountain scenery and snow-covered peaks, intolerantly speeding local traffic made this a stressful drive. With the railway running parallel and crossing the river gorge on huge trellis bridges, the road turned every which way, with the high snowy fells of Saltfjell looming ahead. After a wearying drive, we eventually reached the turning for the farmstead of Elvmøthei Fjellgård where we should camp tonight. Crossing a narrow bridge over a foaming torrent running down from Saltfjell's snow heights, we settled into the small camping area among the pines beyond the farmhouse. There were a few statics but the eye was drawn to the surrounding panorama of snow-capped mountains and the air filled with the roar of the river torrent (see right). While the air was still warm, we walked back to photograph the river surging torrent and the waterfalls tumbling from Saltfjell (Photo 29 - River torrent at Elvmøthei Fjellgård), but as the sun dipped towards the mountain skyline, although still bright, the evening began to grow chill.

Crossing the Arctic Circle on the snowy wastes of Saltfjell:  the following morning, we began the long climb up onto the high Saltfjell plateau. As we steadily gained height, pines and spruce gave way to wispy birches which became increasingly stunted finally giving way to bare snow-covered tundra. On a bright sunny morning, it was a beautiful prospect, but in dull weather and poor light it would have been an inhospitably bleak setting. The gradient eased as we gained the wide open vista of the broad Saltfjell plateau, with snow-fields stretching away to distant horizons of snow-covered peaks lit by a bright sun against a blue sky. Several times we stopped to photograph this magnificent Arctic panorama. We passed the 'bomstasjon' with its parking area and waiting room where in winter drivers wait to be escorted in convoy behind the snow plough across the exposed plateau top. Around this point E6 comes closest to the Swedish border passing within 4 kms across the snow-covered wilderness. As we neared the magic line of latitude at 66° 33' North, we paused at a lay-by for a photograph of this our 3rd 'crossing of the line' (see left) (Photo 30 - 66° 33' North - crossing Arctic Circle ); unlike the 2 previous occasions at Oulanka in Finland and Jokkmokk in Sweden, this year on Norway's high Saltfjell the snow-covered tundra gave the Arctic Circle a truly polar feel (see right). We pulled into the parking area of the Arctic Circle Centre and a glance inside showed just how much of a tacky, over-commercialised tourist trap it really was. Outside amid the snow fields, 2 monuments commemorated the many Yugoslav and Russian POWs who had died under the brutality of WW2 German slave labour building the road over Saltfjell (see below left).

E6 continued across Saltfjell's snowy tundra wilderness with its mountainous skyline, and we passed the road's Høgeste Punkt (highest point) at 692m above sea level (see below right). Remarkably the modern successor to the Arctic railway constructed by Slav POW slave labourers in WW2 still crosses the plateau-top running parallel with the road. Just beyond the high point, the northern railway line to Bodø crossed under E6 on a sweeping arched bridge, cutting a straight line on a raised embankment clear above the snow-fields (Photo 31 - Railway line across Saltfjell's snowy tundra). As E6 began gradually to loose height, the snow-fields became thinner giving way to marshy tundra on the flat northern side of the plateau watershed. The road's descent soon began to steepen, crossing below the tree-line to meet the zone of bare-branched birches and passing Sámi hut settlements with their reindeer fencing. The gradient steepened further with the narrow road following the cascading torrent of the Lønselva watercourse and carving out a rocky gorge. Birches gave way to denser woodland of pine and spruce as we wound steeply down to pass the junction of Route 77. This road turned off eastwards to the Swedish border to become the 'Silver Road' to Areplog, Ardvidsjaur and eventually Skellefteå on the Bothnian coast, another world away.

The 'Blood Road' and Yugoslav POW-slave labour war cemeteries at Rognan and Botn:  in total contrast to the snowy barren tundra wastes of Saltfjell, the lengthy valley of Saltdalen was a lush, green paradise, the birches here in full leaf with the wide Saltelva river flowing peacefully along the broad valley which was hemmed in on both sides by high fells. Farms crowded the valley bottom with ploughed fields and grazing sheep and cattle. In bright afternoon sunshine, we drove the length of the valley reaching the inner recesses of Saltdalsfjord and crossing the river to the village of Rognan. By the fjord-side we found the Blood Road Museum housed in an original WW2 German barrack hut from the huge POW slave labour camps here at Saltdal and Botn. Some 30,000 Russian, Serbian and Polish POWs were transported to North Norway to work on improving the state highway and advancing the railway north from Mosjøen. They were housed in appalling conditions in prison camps with totally inadequate clothing against the severe winter climate, and subjected to malnutrition and brutal treatment by SS guards. The worst brutalities were however inflicted by young Norwegian SS volunteers; one Norwegian civilian road worker spoke of the treatment by fellow Norwegians towards Serbian POWs he had witnessed at Botn as beyond belief. The Blood Road Museum documents the brutality towards Slavic POW-slave labourers, but it was closed with today being a public holiday. We had however established the location of war cemeteries (Krigskirkegårder) above Botn and followed the 'Blood Road' steeply up into the wooded hills. The lane ended at 2 separate cemeteries, the first being the burial place of 1,657 of the 2,368 Yugoslav POWs who died in Northern Norway (see left). Even on a sunny afternoon, this wooded glade was a movingly mournful place with the graveyard enclosed by mossy stone walls and turf immaculately maintained (Photo 32 - Yugoslav POW~slave labour war cemetery at Botn). Individual and communal grave-plaques listed the names of the poor men who died here from disease, hypothermia, malnutrition as well as sheer bloody barbaric German brutality, torture and mass executions. In contrast, the other cemetery contained the graves of 2,732 of their German captors who died in the district during WW2, and a memorial to the 2,000 German sailors drowned when the Scharnhorst was sunk off Nordkapp in December 1943. The graves were marked by granite crosses with a offensively monstrous Teutonic cross in the graveyard's centre.

The road to Fauske and Bodøsjøen Camping, Bodø:  back down the lane, we re-joined E6 which burrowed through short tunnels through headlands and gained height in spectacular fashion around a high shelf above Saltfjord to drop down towards Fauske. Fauske is a former copper and iron mining town and cradle of Norwegian trade-unionism; it is also famous for its Norwegian Rose marble quarried around the town and used to face such monumental buildings as the Oslo Rådhus, UN Headquarters in New York and Emperor's Palace in Tokyo. The modern town seemed pleasant but un-noteworthy, set on the fjord-side at the road junction where E6 branches off north; we continued westwards on Route 80 for the remaining 50kms to Bodø, winding along the shore of Skjerstadfjord and following the final stretch of Norway's northern railway line. On the approach to the city, we turned off to find Bodøsjøen Camping set on the fjord-side but directly under the flight path of Bodø airport. There were however only occasional aircraft landing at the regional airport on domestic flights and their noise was comparatively innocuous compared with the rowdy din created by the inconsiderate occupants of Dutch and Norwegian mega-sized camping-cars and caravans. Such unnecessary disturbance was more than compensated by views from the fjord shore-line of the magnificent skyline of snow-covered jagged peaks lining the eastern and southern horizon (Photo 33 - Bodøsjøen Camping's mountain skyline), and by our meeting in the common room with the 2 Larries from Calgary in Alberta, Western Canada and over here on a cycling tour. Although now within the Arctic, we were still a couple of days short of Bodø's period of midnight sun; the sun was currently setting at 0018 and rising again at 0150!

The Norske Luftfarts (Aviation) Museum at Bodø:  Bodø was founded as a small trading settlement in 1816 with a population of just 55 male inhabitants. The town grew slowly, struggling to survive until the 1860s herring boom with enormous quantities of herring being landed and processed at Bodø. With all the associated industries to support the fishing fleet and fish sold at high prices, the town prospered and new inhabitants flocked here; by 1885 the population had reached 2,700. During the early 20th century several industrial plants developed at Bodø which continued to grow as a regional centre. Then on 27 May 1940, the little port of Bodø was razed to the ground by German bombers; in just 2½ hours most of the town had been reduced to rubble and 2/3s of the buildings totally destroyed. The city was rebuilt after the war but with none of the 19th century buildings that once lined the waterfront having survived the German bombing, the current city's buildings are all modern. The 2014 population is almost 50,000, and Bodø is the northern terminus of the railway line from Oslo and Trondheim.

Our first stop the following morning was at the Norwegian Aviation Museum which we reached after a 15 minute walk from the campsite. The museum's displays of preserved aircraft document both Norway's civil and military aviation history, and its building is shaped in the form of a propeller with one arm housing the civil aircraft and the other military aircraft of WW2 and the Cold War. The central apex is topped by the former control tower of Bodø airport. The first displays related the history of the Norwegian Air Force, founded in 1912 as the Naval and Army air forces which were only merged into a 3rd military force in 1944 by the government in exile. Just inside the hall displays describing the principles of flight included a light aircraft in which visitors could take the pilot's seat and handle the controls (see above right). The aircraft displays included 2 versions of the de Havilland Twin Otter which became a mainstay of Norwegian internal civil air transport from the 1960s~90s, an ideal aircraft to open up the country able to land and take off on just a few 100m of runway or be fitted with skis or floats for landing on snow or lakes. Another key display was the Junkers JU-52, the only surviving example of this distinctive aircraft fitted with floats as a seaplane (Photo 34 - Junkers JU-52 seaplane). Junkers built 4,845 of these aircraft with their distinctive trimotor design and corrugated metal fuselage. It had been the Luftwaffe's main transport aircraft and in 1940 570 Ju-52s spearheaded the German invasion of Norway dropping parachute troops. In 1936 the Norwegian Aviation Co had bought 4 Ju-52 seaplanes for use as civilian transport and after WW2 took over 6 more German Ju-52s to develop air transport in the north on the Bodø~Harstad~Tromsø route. During the Cold War the USAF used Bodø as an airbase, and for the CIA high altitude U2 spy-plane flights over USSR, and one of these black sinister-looking aircraft was displayed in the far corner of the hall (Photo 35 - U2 high altitude spy-plane). The ill-fated U2 flight in July 1960 in which Gary Powers was shot down by Soviet missiles over Sverdlovsk was en route from Peshawar in Pakistan over USSR to the Barents Sea to land at Bodø. In the major diplomatic incident that followed the U2 shooting down, Khrushchev threatened to bomb Bodø. From the gallery we were able to examine at close quarters the U2 with its distinctive small fuselage and lengthy wing surface, designed for cruising a very high altitude. It was an eerie sensation looking down directly into the tiny, cramped cockpit in which Powers would have sat on his ill-fated flight which brought the highly secret U2 to international prominence.

The main displays in the second hall were military aircraft of WW2 and the Cold War flown by the Norwegian Air Force. A huge diorama recreated the crash scene of a German Ju-88 heavy bomber in the wilds of Arctic Norway. But the central display was a Mark IX Spitfire and de Havilland Mosquito both with Norwegian markings; Norwegian Air Force squadrons and Norwegian RAF pilots flew these aircraft in raids on German shipping along the coast of Norway. Along side the Spitfire was its arch opponent, the more advanced Focke-Wulf Fw190; this particular model had crashed near to Berlevåg in December 1943, the remains discovered and salvaged in 1964 and fully restored in 2013 (Photo 36 - Focke-Wulf Fw190 German WW2 fighter). Nearby was a huge Catalina flying boat which Norwegian pilots flew on anti-U-boat patrols. During the Cold War in the 1950s, the US under their Military Assistance Programme had armed NATO allies such as Norway with the latest technological jet aircraft such as the Republic F-84 Thunderjet and North American F-86 Sabre-jet. Later in the 1960s the Norwegian Air Force purchased 108 Northrop F-5 Freedom Fighters. Examples of all these formidable-looking aircraft were on display.

We concluded our visit in the central control tower, very hot in today's sunshine but with impressive views across Bodø airport runway and radar dome to the distant snowy peaks. Bodø's Norske Luftfarts Museum had an admirable and unique collection of both civil and military aircraft, but despite the building's design, the displays were far more crammed in with much dimmer lighting than the equivalent Swedish Aircraft Museum at Linköping which we visited last year; its far more spacious and well-lit halls made photographing the aircraft far easier, which is after all what most visitors want.

Our visit to Bodø:  from outside the museum we caught the #3 bus into the centre of Bodø with the intention of waving off the south-bound Hurtigrute which we believed was due to depart at 4-15pm. We got off the bus at Bodø Stasjon and set off at a brisk pace along towards the ferry terminals. Cars, lorries and passengers were queuing for the Lofoten Islands ferry to Moskenes, but in puzzlement we could see no sign of the Hurtigrute at the quay. At the freight-yard, fork-lift trucks now stood idle and the gates were firmly locked; the express-liner had already sailed, and reading the timetable more closely, we had mis-read 4-00am for 4-00 pm and were 12 hours too late! Back along the main road, and impressed by Nordic civility with cars and even lorries stopping voluntarily to allow pedestrian to cross, we returned to the railway station where the 16-05 train for Rognan was waiting by the buffers (see right), literally the end of the line at the railway's unassuming northern terminus here in Bodø (Photo 37 - End of the line at Bodø railway station).

We walked along the waterfront, photographing the fishing boats against a backdrop of oil storage tanks across the harbour and distant jagged mountain peaks (see left). Up the steep hill to the main square of Torget, a statue of a gaunt-looking King Håkon VII gazed wistfully out to sea, recalling his fleeing from Oslo and the German invaders in May 1940 and his escape into 5 years exile in Exile (Photo 38 - Statue of King Håkon VII at Bodø). Just around the corner we found the Domkirke, a huge formless concrete barn of a building with its skeletal concrete bell tower and lacking any charm or grace. Bodø's original church was destroyed by German bombing in 1940, and its replacement had been completed in 1956 following an architectural competition; if this was the winning design, whatever must the unsuccessful offering have looked like! From whichever angle you tried to photograph it, even with its starkness relieved by trees, it still resembled a huge and formless concrete barn. The bronze doors were firmly locked, and as we sat considering what delights we might be missing inside, we got into conversation with a charming French couple from Avignon who were about to set off on a walking tour in the Lofotens. We had never believed that in Northern Norway we should be using our long-forgotten French, and it was not to be the last time we should meet this couple.

Understandably modern thanks to German wartime aggression, Bodø as a city could certainly not be described as an elegant place, and we wandered back down to the centre to shop for provisions at an even more expensive than usual supermarket and to catch our bus back out to the campsite.

E6 north over the mountains:  leaving Bodø, we headed back along Route 80 to Fauske, planning to camp overnight at 1 of the 2 campsites there; both had pretentious names involving variants of Fauske camping-motel or hotel with silly prices to match, certainly enough to deter. We therefore moved on over a gloomily dismal valley hemmed in by high fells, and some 12kms north found the welcoming Strømhaug Camping in the village of Straumen just off E6 at the head of Sørfolda Fjord. The small campsite, with flat, grassy camping area alongside a fast-flowing river, site-wide wi-fi internet, and recently upgraded facilities, was surrounded by high mountains, and we settled in with the heater on against the bitterly chill wind driving down from the north; the weather forecast promised a return to milder sunnier weather in the coming days.

The E6 north from Straumen passed through a series of poorly lit tunnels through the craggy mountain side and alongside Leirfjord, turning inland to gain height steeply through another tunnel. From the watershed with spectacular views ahead of snow-covered Sildhopfjellet, the road began a long descent through the 4.7km long Kobbskar tunnel, an unnerving sensation descending so rapidly in darkness, and emerged again at fjord level at the small settlement of Mørsvikbotn. E6 now began a long and serious ascent into high mountainous terrain with distant snow-covered shapely peaks in all directions. Higher and higher we climbed above the level of pines, then higher through the here leafless birches to reach a desolate plateau, looking out across frozen lakes and snow-covered wilderness of peaks. The road beyond continued to gain height into even more spectacular snowy mountainous surroundings, a bleak black and white monochrome environment on the dull overcast day (Photo 39 - E6 north over snowy mountains), finally beginning a long and winding descent past a further impressive range of peaks, and dropping down past Rotvatnet to the broad Sagelva valley.

At a road junction where a minor road branched off to the coast, a brown sign pointed to Helleristningsfelt (Rock engravings). We turned into the car park where an information panel detailed the stone age art work, created some 8,000 years ago not by chip-engraving but by polishing the outlines of reindeer onto the panels of glacially smoothed rock. A pathway led to where, on the almost vertical rock panels above the water-course, we could see the life-sized outlines of 2 reindeer (see right); the better preserved engraving showed clearly the antlered head bent as if to drink, gracefully portrayed with naturalistic style (Photo 40 - Sagelva reindeer rock engravings).

A memorable campsite at Skutvik ready for the Lofoten ferry:  beyond the large village of Innhavet, the now more narrow E6 gained height up through delightful wooded hill-country to reach a viewpoint with an unbelievably spectacular skyline of jagged snowy peaks; here was our first distant view of Lofoten's renowned mountainous profile, and the nearer peaks of the Finnøya and Hamarøya peninsulas (Photo 41 - First view of distant Lofoten peaks). Dropping steeply down to fjord level through a bleak monochrome wilderness of lakes and fell, we reached the road junction at Ulsvåg where E6 continued northwards to Narvik; we should return this way in 2 months time on our way south from Finmark. Today we turned off onto the more narrow Route 81 for the final 30kms drive out to the tiny port of Skutvik. The lane twisted and turned through wooded fell-land with views between the pines of shapely peaks, crossing a flimsy-looking suspension bridge into the village of Oppeid. Beyond here, the terrain opened up with farms dominated by prominent peaks, the lane finally ending at Skutvik where a few vehicles were waiting for the evening ferry to Svalvær. Before driving out to Ness Camping, we checked tomorrow morning ferry timetable, and it was a good thing we did: a new summer season timetable had just started with times different from our expectations. Just outside the port, we turned off on a single-track lane leading out to Ness and its little campsite. Immediate impressions were good: a wide shore-side gravelled camping area looking out across the bay towards the serried ranks of Finnøya snow-covered peaks (see above left). It was another of those unforgettably spectacular settings which will doubtless grow in the recalling (Photo 42 - Ness Camping at Skutvik).

The lady-owner arrived and welcomed us with a reduced price as one of the season's earliest guests and gave us the wi-fi pass-word; such a lovely welcome to complement a magnificent setting just had to merit our +5 highest rating. We had both the campsite and entire bay to ourselves with the heavenly peace broken only by the sound of birds. We quickly settled in and binoculars were soon out: oyster-catchers 'peeping' loudly, ringed plovers pecking in the shoreline mud, and most spectacularly common terns soaring above the bay and hovering with rapidly flapping wings to dive for fish. At 3-00am the following morning, with the new light of the rising sun catching the surrounding mountains with its pinkish glow (see above right) (Photo 43 - Dawn over Skutvik), a heron soared across the bay (see left) cawing after an aerial tussle with a gull, and later as we sat out for breakfast a curlew announced his arrival with his 'kettle's boiling' crescendo as he paraded along the shoreline rocks. It was a wonderfully peaceful morning (Photo 44 - Early morning at Skutvik).

After our long but spectacular drive over the mountains to reach Skutvik, here at Ness Camping we had a wonderfully peaceful setting with memorable mountain views and bonus of birdlife. At what was surely one of the finest campsites we had ever stayed at in almost 50 years of camping, we could revel in the astounding views with warm sunshine and clear light for photography, perfect weather and perfect mountain setting for a productively relaxing day in camp. We sat up late into the evening with the sun declining behind a hill, before tomorrow's ferry crossing to begin the next phase of the trip on the Lofoten and Vesterålen Islands.

Next edition to be published quite soon

Sheila and Paul

Published:  31 August 2014 at Undredal, Aurlandsfjord

 

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