About dog-gone time!

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Who are we : Anne & Gordon (mostly human), Fred and Jerry (100% stubborn terrier)

Why are we : We’ve always liked being away and we have had and closed many discussions about holiday homes or motorhomes. We have been to quite a few places but we have always come back to holidaying in the Lake District had a few ideas over the years

We had a flash of inspiration or local beer when driving and renting in Scotland last year - these big Volkswagen nearly cars that could stop and be a big tents. Could “enthusiastic” car drivers that like camping be converted? Spoiler alert: we are here

Albert is a missed member of our clan. We were supposed to do the hiking part of our travels together. Unfortunately he passed away shortly after our first trip. I have forgiven him and our van has become “Balbie” after one of his many nicknames




What are we : clueless - erm I mean learning by doing (after a lot of Googling - is it really better

The Paved Road : We have posted an intro and a couple of “views from our van” - This could be a flash in the pan but I want to remember when I’ve been and have something to nudge us to do more.

In summary, this will be my waffle and photos with doses of corrections by Anne It is not impossible that a pooch dictates to me either; we’ll probably have done something wrong if that becomes necessary!

 

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History: https://vwcaliforniaclub.com/threads/new-and-first-trip.29898/

 

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History : The van with no name is coming home.

I drove by the dealership the other week ... one of these must be mine:



(Yes I have been that sad )

And some days later it was true!

 

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History: Roskilde

Sometimes one is company


Other times one doesn’t want company
But it’s all good as long as our tummies are full

 

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History: Karlskrona

I said I was working from home - I may not have been clear about which home though


The afterwork was definitely worth it

 

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Now we are on the way through Lofoten in Norway but last week we drove up through Sweden and down through Vesterålen. So the next posts will also be a mini catch up - better late than never!

 

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The 13th is always a good date to do something (at least it is not a Friday) and we are finally off. Now we know that it takes a bit longer to pack for 3 weeks so we set off a day later but hopefully wiser. Balbie was so prepared and clean and it really shows when w stopped for the night in Darlana

 

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Now the works begins. We are driving straight up towards Vesterålen so that we have more time to drive down and just follow our noses. It is strange that having the freedom to do whatever we want has made planning more difficult. There has been a lot of to-ing and fro-ing between “we can go all these places” and “when do we stop and experience these places”. So our plans have been growing and shrinking in the weeks leading up to it trip.

This part of the plan only became real a few days before we left - we went to Darlarna to meet up with family and then pushing on seemed the best plan. We would drive up past Kiruna and Abisko to go into Norway

So it was on to a campsite in Rätan. A shower seemed like a nice idea and the view didn’t harm either

 

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This was today’s (Monday, July 15th) strangely nice view. Why is it so nice? Well, we have found somewhere to stop with few mosquitoes and midges after driving longer than planned and we both managed our “hangries” at the end of the day

We are following the E45 up and we were heading towards Arvidsjaur with the intention of stopping sometime before we got there. I fell into the gps countdown trap once it told me that there was less than an hour to go and pushed on. Now the next lesson begins

It turns out that it can take some time to find a place to stop and other people may have already had the same idea. We kept on going looking for simple spot, trying to trust our eyes instead of our stomachs (because everywhere was good according to those )

Our stop in Darlarna had been punctuated in many ways by mosquitoes and midges. Our first stop tonight was pretty and tucked away from the road by a stream. Our M-friends were also our in force. We didn’t even get out of the van but pulled away with heavy hearts and empty tummies.

So back to the beginning of this post - a heavenly strip of bare land just off the road. In other words a great barrier from most of our M-friends for the night

 

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Well the plan to stop in Sweden worked as well as the rest of our plans so far! Neither Kiruna nor Abisko tempted us so it was over the border for us. We stopped at customs with our dogs but it turns out that it wasn’t needed (but the paperwork and de-worming should be in place)

We woke up in Bjerkvik the next day and we all completed our morning rituals before going on to Senja

 

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(I think I will write first and add my pictures later, now that I realise that I can go back and edit). We have slowed down and there scenery is getting better so now the real camera comes out

I would like to keep it to a post/ diary entry per day

 

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Senja

Thank you @ArcticMatt for your post: https://vwcaliforniaclub.com/threads/lofoten-vesterålen.14663/. Anne had mentioned that she wanted Lofoten on the agenda and your post really made me stop and plan what else we could do.

We settled on starting in Senja instead of higher up since we were not at all sure of how long the rest of the journey may take.

Senja is a beautiful place and there weren’t many other tourists either.

We are starting to learn that it is a good idea to look for a place a little bit early and we found as great little bay. It filled up a bit over the next hour or so and soon “new” arrivals had to move on

The midnight sun really confuses bed time. It was after midnight when I took my last photo, the early start is not looking promising now

 

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To Andøya

 

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Andøya - Måtind

 

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2 Lofoten - Outside Svolvær

 

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Outside Brenna

 

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To Fredvang bridges

 

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Nusfjord - Saltstraumen

 

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Regret, Decisions and Redemption - Puffins

We may have done the wrong thing - we are going south following the Helgelandkysten route. This is supposed to be a beautiful route and there is so much to do. But we have only scratched Vesterålen and we are torn - should we keep going down?

This has to be the blessing and curse of this kind of travelling. The open choices are great when an unexpected thing turns up but just going forwards can really wake up some FOMO.

 

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Odd day 1 Lovund - Mo i Rana

 

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Odd Day 2 Korgfjellet and back

 

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Korgfjellet - Vega baby!

 

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Vega 2 & Fred

 

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Charge to Visingsö

 

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Visingsö - home The start of the end

Well this is it - the last roll home.

Fred and I are making the most of the last morning coffee on the road (for now). These may be the best part of our day - just outside and everyone else is asleep