Mindre er mer /less is more

Anja starts the morning in the sea, a short cold shower - without jellyfish. What a tingling feeling of well-being, in the middle of this magnificent landscape by the fjord. Then hot coffee, collected blueberries and cloudberries, a few muesli bars (there was no bread, shops - they are very rare up here) and the day can begin. It just feels liberating, in the middle of nature, with nature. We also saw three dolphins in the fjord, almost kitschy, steel-blue sky, sunshine, turquoise sea, colorful flower meadows, well, luckily the rainbow unicorns didn't come. It's very easy to ride on our bikes, it rolls really well. The gravel bikes weigh 8 kg each and our luggage - depending on how many 200-gram bars of Freia chocolate we loaded - around 13 kg. The roads are narrow, but in good condition. A huge thank you to the drivers who have treated us very respectfully and patiently so far. At midday we reach Sortland, a fairly large town on the map. For us that means finally food and drink. But that probably only means that for us. Sunday - totally dead, everywhere. The only gas station with a shop only sells weird energy drinks and car accessories. Phew... hungry! We find a mini shop with maxi prices. Packaged blueberry muffins and raisin rolls. That can also taste heavenly. The sun is still shining and we set off through fantastic steppe landscapes and endless expanses. Peter is waiting to finally see the first moose. But it doesn't want to see us, instead three pretty steep and pretty long bridges await us, luckily without wind and without moose on the bridge. The day seems to never end today on the way to Andenes in the north of the Vesterålen. It's getting cold and cloudy, we've run out of water and you're not allowed to camp anywhere because it's a nature reserve or it's swampy. We are approaching the 100 kilometer mark and 1000 meters in altitude. Peter comes up with the idea of getting water from the cemetery. Sounds absurd, yes, but not such a bad idea. In Norway you can drink from lakes and streams everywhere. The water quality is exceptionally good. Sure, but if you drive along the sea, the drinking water is rather poor. So one Sunday we go to the nearest cemetery, don't water the flowers, but fill our bottles with fresh drinking water. On a trip like this you have to improvise every day and adapt to the circumstances, limit yourself to what little you can get. If you can master that, all paths and possibilities are open. Sometimes there is also a nice little hotel called "Marmelkroken" in Bø, which was our saving lighthouse and had a room available late in the cold evening. Tak!