Back to the Mainland

On Sunday morning, we checked out of our apartment early. We had places to be! Specifically, we had to be at the ferry back in Moskenes about 1:30pm. Our plan was to get on the road, grab breakfast in Leknes, drive to Ramberg, hike a cool mountain there, make a quick pit stop in Reine for food and a Lofoten souvenir, and then get in line for the ferry back to Bodø.

Well, best laid plans… We had forgotten that things shut down on Sundays in Norway. It’s wonderful and also challenging for a tourist. The Leknes Bakeri? Closed. We realized this fact as we were driving away from Svolvær at 7:30am. I suggested we hit up the local Circle K, and we did, about 10 minutes later. The Circle K didn’t open until 8:00am. In hindsight, we should have just stayed put and amused ourselves for 20 minutes while we waited for the store to open. Instead, we got back on the road, promising ourselves we’d find another Circle K soon.

Except we didn’t. The next Circle K wouldn’t be until Leknes, and that was about a 75-minute drive from Svolvær. Hangrily, I mourned my lack of coffee and food access. (In my defense, I had run earlier that morning and was ready for caffeine and carbs.)

When we pulled up in Leknes, the entire town was closed, including Circle K. I thought we could scoot right into a grocery store and grab some croissants and coffee, but nope. The grocery store wouldn’t open until later.

Oh. My. Word. Now I was really hangry. I was banking on Circle K in Leknes for my coffee and my dreams had been suddenly shattered. I looked at the map again; there was a Circle K in Ramberg, our destination for the hike. I told Tim we could just drive on to Ramberg. But as we were getting back onto the main road after Leknes, Tim spotted a gas station with a convenience store. He thought it might be open. At this point, I was willing to do anything to get my coffee, so I supported a pit stop.

We parked and walked to the convenience store door just as it was opening. And the friendliest convenience store worker ever greeted us. She, too, spoke excellent English and encouraged us to move to Lofoten. It was a delightful visit to a very random convenience store – and I got my coffee. Turns out the coffee was not good, but I had my caffeine fix all the same. (Note to self: If you do move to Lofoten, make sure you are fully stocked up on Saturday for Sunday needs.)

Newly fueled by bad coffee and good croissants (half off, since they were baked the day before), we drove the rest of the way to Ramberg, parked behind a grocery store, and walked up a gravel road to a water tower. Via a Lofoten guide book, Tim had identified what was supposed to be a “family hike” in Ramberg. At the water tower, we were supposed to take the trail “on the right” for this family hike. But we never saw a trail on the right; we only saw one trail. And it pretty much went straight up the mountain. So we took it and climbed up another mountain, that is, until the clouds rolled in and it started raining. That’s also about the time we realized the kids were not wearing their hiking shoes; they were wearing their Nike Air Jordans, that most coveted of shoe for the tween set. How they missed the fact that we were going on a hike that day, I just don't know. We had only talked about it for 24 hours.

Starting the hike under blue sky.

Note the non-hiking shoes on the 12 and under set.

Ramberg...with some clouds coming in.

We called an audible and started making our way down the – now muddy – mountain. We tried to avoid stepping in sheep poop along the way, but the poop and the mud kind of mixed together and let me just tell you that our car stunk on the drive to Reine.

The weather changed quickly. Rainy Ramberg!

We grabbed a quick lunch in Reine and then swung by a little Lofoten National Park gift store for a souvenir. By 1:30pm, we were in line for the ferry. Almost an hour later, we drove onto the ferry. I don’t think any of us really wanted to leave Lofoten. It’s such a beautiful place and we marveled about how untouched it was – no billboards, no chain restaurants (at least where we were), lots of green, lots of roaming sheep, all the nature.

We just parked on the ferry. Now it's time to head upstairs to the passenger seating area.

Um, just a little windy on the deck.

Three hours on the ferry later, we were back in Bodø. Tim dropped the rental car off while the kids and I camped out in our hotel room (and Taylor used multiple Kleenexes to try and clean her Nikes). We met up for dinner, then went back to our hotel room (two more Murphy bunk beds – so cool!) and promptly went to sleep. We had an early flight the next day: Back to Olso to grab a connection to Stavanger. We were heading to southwest Norway!