This and That – June News

I haven’t added much in the way of updates lately, so here are a few quick tie bits so you guys don’t think I’ve abandoned the website. 🙂

April – May Trip to Lofoten:

At the end of April, I had the pleasure of joining two Australian landscape photographers, Rod Thomas (Facebook – Website) and Adam Crews (Facebook – Website), for two weeks on the islands.  As this was the first time for both of them to visit Lofoten, I did my best to show them around and try and get to a few somewhat out of the way places, though being spring, and a relatively cold one this year, it wasn’t always easy.

Overall it was a good trip and we even managed nights camping at both Bunes and Kvalvika beaches under pretty calm, albeit cold, conditions.  Our epic driftwood campfires at 1am after shooting late into the night might be a highlight of the trip for me.  Another nice evening was spent on the summit Offersøykammen waiting for a sunset that never really arrived.

During my time on the islands, any sort of colour in the sky was a coy companion.  Despite some wonderful days, there seemed to be a perpetual wall of cloud on the northern horizon that would kill off any colour before it had a chance to arrive.  Rod and Adam, however, got lucky though on few days they stayed longer than me, and had a couple brilliant evenings and mornings.

Spring on Lofoten is exhausting.  The days are so long, that you don’t really know when to sleep and by early May, it is just better to stay up through sunset and sunrise.  But unlike the end up summer, it’s damn cold in April/May.  So waiting up on the summit of Ryten in the cold winds for 5 hours until sunset arrives really takes a toll.  At times I wish I could have a time machine to move the sun along a bit quicker!  And while I like the snow cover on the mountains, the rest of the terrain feels a bit ‘lifeless’ to me.  I like green grass and trees.  Just a personal preference I guess.  If you’re looking for those arctic twilight nights, my recommendation would be for the last week of July to the beginning of August.

April – May Photo Gallery:

My time here in Europe (Wales at the moment) is ending next week.  Once I’m home I’ll work on getting the gallery of my Spring images online, should be in another two weeks at the latest.

New Travel Articles:

I frequently get asked ‘what to do … for xx days on Lofoten.’  I think I’m going to try and put together a series of itineraries covering 2 days to 1 week of ‘what to do on Lofoten.’  I’m thinking these will be more along the lines of the best ways to use public transport to connect together a series of hikes for something like a ‘5 day best of tour of Moskenesøy,’ or something thereabouts. I’ll probably end up with a few versions taking for different skill levels and with or without camping.

Ideally, I’d like to get back to the islands for another 2 weeks or so by early Autumn at the latest to hike a few sections of trail which I haven’t been on yet (I only like to write about what I have actually hiked, not 2nd hand info).  But I’m not sure it will be possible this year unless I can find some work once I get back to California next week.  So bigger articles might have to wait until next year…

Other than that, I have one more hiking article to write, for the short, easy coastal walk between Eggum and Unstad.  I also tend to update and re-write a few of the articles from time to time just to make them flow a bit better and help remedy my spelling and grammatical mistakes.

Reader Questions:

Along the same lines as above, I think I’ll start a section somewhere (not sure if it will be a continually updated blog post, or a dedicated page somewhere else) where I’ll post some of the more detailed ‘what to do’ type questions I get, just so everything is in one place and can be used for others to reference.  I’ve written some pretty long emails with detailed plans, so seems a bit of a shame for me not to share with everyone.  And also, some questions seemed to get asked fairly frequently, so it will keep me from repeating myself too often.

And if you’re sending me a question via the ‘contact’ page, be sure you enter your email correctly.  I’ve had a couple bounce back lately.  I don’t want you to think I’ve ignored you.  If you just want to say something nice, then it doesn’t matter so much 🙂

På Tur I Lofoten:

Fortunately, there is already a good guidebook for Lofoten in existence so you won’t have to wait on me.  Unfortunately though, it is only available in Norwegian at the moment.  Even without being able to read much, there are good photos for most routes, so if you’re planning a long hiking holiday on the islands, it could be a good companion to have.

‘På Tur I Lofoten’ is available in Svolvær at the Rødsand Libris bookshop, Vestfjordgata 8.

Online, you can order from Lofoten Turlag – HERE

Lines Of Lofoten:

Last Summer I ran into some guys shooting mountain biking on the old road to Unstad.  Lines of Lofoten is what they were working on.  The result is beautifully cinematic and set in dramatic locations across the islands.  If you are a fan of Lofoten, I suggest you give it a watch on the DBTV website – HERE.

Instagram:

And finally, as I always seem to be late to the party on certain things, I joined Instagram a couple months back.  I actually posted quite a few photo’s while I was on the islands.  A lot more ‘behind the scenes’ type stuff than will ever show up here.  You can follow me -HERE-

Well, thats it for now…