Summer Research in Northern Norway: Excursion, Part I: Hurtigruten Cruise

I've returned from an exhausting and expensive, but really interesting and in some places spectacular, excursion to Bodø, a medium-sized city about 150 miles south of Andenes, but still north of the Arctic Circle. I took the Hurtigruten ("Coastal Express") boat on the way down, and flew back.

To get on the Hurtigruten on Saturday, I had to go to Risøyhamn, a village on the same island as Andøya but about 25 miles south. There's a bus that goes between there and Andenes, run by Nordland 177, a company which is responsible for all the bus service in Nordland County (a Norwegian county is the equivalent of a U.S. state). The bus left Andenes at 7:20 AM so I had to get up pretty early.The Rocket Range's bikes were (and still are) in the shop for repairs, so I had to take a taxi to get to downtown Andenes. Since I also wanted to withdraw from an ATM downtown, and I wanted to be conservative with the time, I ordered the taxi for 6:50. But when I waited outside there was no taxi, and at 6:58 I called the company again. They said they'd be there in 10 minutes. At 7:10, and still no taxi, I was getting really nervous--if I missed the bus, I'd have no way to get to the boat, unless I used the apparently unreliable taxi company. So I started walking toward downtown, even though it's far more than a 10-minute walk, hoping I'd meet the taxi on the way and save time, or maybe intercept the bus itself. Finally I made it to what looked like a bus shelter and realized that the bus probably stopped there, which was confirmed when someone else came out to wait for the bus. (By the time the bus arrived there was still no sign of a taxi--I won't use them again.)

Scene on Andøya island, from the bus

The weather was really nice, sunny, if a bit hazy--much better than the previous long weekend. Even the bus ride was scenic. Andøya is sparsely populated but most of the people seemed to live along this one road. The bus arrived in Risøyhamn right on time, at 8:20, leaving me with 2 hours and 25 minutes before the Hurtigruten was set to arrive.

Risøyhamn Bridge

The only structure of note in Risøyhamn was the bridge connecting Andøya to the rest of norway, and there wasn't to much to do there. I basically just walked around looking for a place to eat, and it turned out the only option was a convenience store that opened at 9:30.

Hurtigruten at Risøyhamn

The Hurtigruten is probably best described as a small cruise ship, since it seemed the vast majority of passengers had rooms and meal plans and were there for the entire 12-day cruise from Bergen, in southern Norway, to Kirkenes, near the border with Russia, and back. But it also transfers freight, and functions as a ferry for people like me, going on short trips from one port to another. In any case, it was a pretty nice ship, with an observation lounge and plenty of deck space for viewing the scenery. Since it was built in the early 80s, and the second oldest of the Hurtigruten company's boats, the interior could've been a lot nicer. But most importantly, the boat was big enough, and the water calm enough, that I didn't get seasick, which would've ruined the whole thing.

Before reaching Bodø, the ship stopped at 4 towns in the Vesterålen and Lofoten Islands, all of them beginning with S: Sortland, Stokmarknes, Svolvær, and Stamsund. Sortland and Stamsund were only 30-minute stops so I didn't want to get off the boat, but from their appearances it didn't seem worth it anyway. Stokmarknes contained the Hurtigruten Museum (admission free with a ship ticket), which, predictably, involved the company glorifying itself and wasn't too interesting. They did have an older boat from their fleet, built in the 30s, which we could explore. But it wasn't too different from the ship I was on, the lounges, etc. having been renovated in the 70s, except that the cabins were really small and cramped, reminding me more of the 19th century whaling ship at Mystic Seaport in Connecticut than of my own memories of Carnival and Disney cruises.

Hurtigruten Museum, Stokmarknes

Svolvær

Svolvær was the most interesting of thes ports, with interesting modern architecture, a spectacular setting, and huge racks where they dry fish. The boat stopped for 90 minutes there, which was enough time to get some dinner, not wanting to eat on the boat. Most of the delis and bakeries were closed for dinner, and I didn't want to eat at a sit-down restaurant for fear that I wouldn't make it out in time, but I found a place that sold Doner Kebabs, apparently a very popular fast-food-type preparation in Europe. It tasted very good, at least on par with American fast food.

Fish being dried at Svolvær

Really, though, the most interesting part of the trip wasn't the ports, where the short stop time prevented me from really seeing much, but the scenery between the ports. Between Stokmarknes and Svolvær were some of the most famous parts of the entire cruise, including the Raftsund, a narrow passage between two islands with lots of waterfalls, and the Trollfjord, a narrow arm of ocean, barely wider than the boat, which is surrounded by near-vertical cliff faces that reach up thousands of feet. At this point, there were so many people out on the deck that it was hard to get a spot near the railing. I've appended photos from this stretch at the end, and I'll put more on the Flickr account when I get a chance.

After Stamsund was a 4-hour stretch of open water between the lofoten and the mainland. There was no interesting scenery to look at, so there were some Norwegian fairy tales told by an "award-winning storyteller". She seemed pretty talented, interspersing the tales with some traditional instruments, but since 2 of the 3 stories ended with "they lived happily ever after" I somewhat doubt their authenticity. In any case, they didn't have morals or life relevance, like Aesop's fables or Greek mythology, and just involved some trolls, and the good guy winning through arbitrary plot contrivances, so I struggle even to remember what they were about. After this was over, I slept for a little in the lounge, waking up at 2 AM when the ship arrived in Bodø. This was the end of the boat journey, and I made my way to the train station, the location of the hostel where I was staying. The hostel was a clean, modern facility, but it was pretty cramped--there were 4 guys in room smaller than my room at the Rocket Range, with 2 pairs of bunkbeds, and with no A/C (it was surprisingly hot weather) it wasn't too comfortable. But I was really exhausted so I slept well anyway.

It's getting pretty late and I need to get up for work tomorrow, and this is taking quite a while to write. I'll finish this with Part II, about the day I spent in Bodø, tomorrow. In the meantime, here's some fjord pictures, as promised. (Click on any picture to enlarge it.)