Westcotts in Svolvær

After arriving in Svolvær, we spent two days recovering and cleaning up the boat. After a month of nearly non-stop travel, it was about time. We slept long and late and ventured into town only once for some shopping.

David’s parents were due to arrive in Svolvær the 12 June at 2030. Their plane from Bodø, however, had diverted to Leknes due to unknown reasons, which meant that they had an unexpected bustrip from Leknes with lots of beautiful scenery. They arrived safe and sound and happy, and hungry so we went off to find dinner in sleepy Svolvær. It being well past 2200, the options were severely limited until one pub reopened their kitchen for us so that we could have pizza. We stayed talking until 0100 in broad daylight.

The next two days we spent much of the mornings sitting in coffee shops catching up. One afternoon was spent showing Laurie and Robin Yuma and giving them a detailed tour of our new home. Unfortunately, we could not take them for a sail as their travel insurance did not allow them to go out on a private sailboat. The other afternoon, we headed out into the drizzle and grey with the island of Svinøya as our destination.

Here we wandered around looking at the old fishermen’s quarters, the German gun emplacements, savouring the stockfish drying racks and their deep aroma, and walking along the pier to the Fisherman’s Wife statue.

Dinners were a bit more Norwegian this time, with fish soups, grilled stockfish (unfortunately, tasting too much like having come straight from the drying racks…), bacalao, and fish and chips.

The day after we saw a bit more of the Lofoten during a photography tour. We got to see three of the islands and heard all sorts of interesting stuff about the place, the driver and the island.

All up a very good day, with two funny coincidences. First, the two other people on the trip were Australian and came from Townsville where Frederieke worked and lived for a couple of years. Second, the guide was from the Netherlands and knew Frederieke’s sister when both of them used to work as journalists in Amsterdam. It is a small world.

On our last day together in Svolvær, the weather had cleared up a bit and we decided to go for a walk up a low hill called Linken. This was an easy walk out of town and along a dirt road to the summit. From there there were nice views of the town and the surrounding areas.

The forecast for the next couple of days was even better weather, so we decided to take advantage of this and planned a few more longer hikes. The next morning, we went across to Laurie and Robin’s hotel early to see them off on their trip back to Australia.