Å, Lofoten Islands. Day 32. 30th July 2013.
Back to the North Atlantic trip in 2013. Having finished entries for Southwest Canyonlands and New Orleans in 2014 and before that Boolcoomatta Workshop in 2015, Hawaii in 2015 and India earlier in 2014, I resume with this initial post on the Lofoten Islands in Norway. The previous North Atlantic post was Shetland and Aberdeen Monochromes and also see the Index of North Atlantic posts.
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Here we are lifting off from Aberdeen Airport, with some of the edge of Aberdeen and the countryside below.
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This is Bergen, where we had a brief stopover.
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Bergen.
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Mountains near Tromso.
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Fjords near Tromso.
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Main road just south of Tromso.
Earlier in the trip, when I came to fly from Shetland to Aberdeen, I discovered I had made a mistake in the booking date. This meant I had to fly the next day, so I gained an extra day in Shetland and lost a day in Lofoten. This in turn meant I had to drive 500km to my accommodation, which I had intended to do in two days. Because I was so short of time and needed to arrive while someone was still awake, I resolved not to stop on the way to take photographs. This is a shot I took through the car windscreen while driving. However, I discovered that it is possible to take photographs or drive, but not prudent to do both at the same time. On the way I saw some magnificent vistas in perfect lighting conditions but did not stop to take them and did not see those conditions again later. It was a marathon drive and my concentration held up well but there was probably a delayed physical price, as we shall see later.
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Here we are now at Å, my destination for the night. It is 11:30pm but we are so far north that it is still light.
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Å is a traditional fishing village, specifically fishing for stockfish, though nowadays tourism is the main economic activity. It is the end of the road in the Lofoten islands.
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Å is the last letter in the Norwegian alphabet and is a diphthong. To say it, it goes from oo as in roof to awe as a single sound with most of the emphasis on the “awe”.
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I was staying upstairs in the building at the middle right.
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The railing at the front was straight. This is perspective distortion rather than lens distortion. Because it is a stitched image and appears as fairly small on this page, if you click on it, it goes to a larger image than usual.
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It was fine for the drive but now it started to rain.
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A look at the seabird hotel across from where i was staying.
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Murray Foote 
I like your shots of Å, especially the fourth one – seabird hotel, boats and rock – love the way you caught a seagull “hovering over the rock”.
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It would have been a great place to spend more time in, go for some long walks, find a boat to explore in…
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What a shame about the bookings and that long drive with wonderful landscapes that I’m sure you were just itching to stop and capture. A fascinating place by the looks of it.
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With the extra day I had in mind to catch a boat trip to an isthmus and walk over that to a wild deserted beach. Ah well, you can’t see it all.
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But it would be nice 🙂
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I do admire your photos but at the same I do wonder if you ever live in your own home??!! You seem to travel non stop??!!! And therefore you must have struck big one in Tatts one day in the past!!
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For the last six years I’ve been averaging two months travel per year though three months for 2013 and this year (much of which still to come). I then come back and process and post the images which takes around three months for each month of travel. I’m also Official Photographer for three Blues Festivals which takes up another month or two (though the largest one is winding up this year). So, I’m at home most of the time churning out images (which in the case of this post are two years old).
I do have some friends who as young students, when they were about to get married, won Tatts and were able to afford to buy a house. I didn’t do that but I worked for 35 years in the Australian Public Service. When I was just about to start counting down the days until I retired, the Government offered to pay me to retire. Sometimes you can be lucky. The way the Australian dollar is going though, much of my travel is going to be more local before too long.
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Wow!! I have not expected such a frank and generous reply! THANK YOU! Yeah, you are lucky indeed and because I love photography and travelling I made such a personal comment about your itineraries. I worked in Australia for more than 30 years before retiring but cannot afford to go to all places you have been too but am nevertheless v. happy.
ALL THE BEST!
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