Day 10 Bodo-Namsen River

The day started off well, after a good breakfast at the Radisson I had to find a solution for my glasses. An optician opened at 9:00 AM, so I went there directly. A friendly lady greeted me and asked me what I needed. I explained my problem and she promised me to find a temporary solution. And she did just that, after 20 minutes my glasses came back with a different frame that didn't match optically but restored the functionality of the glasses. When I asked how much I had to pay for it, she smiled and said she's happy to help and it wouldn't cost anything. Wow, that was really nice.

The drive started off with nice weather, so I decided to take the route through the fjords instead of the E6 highway. Well, since the distance today was quite long, I probably shouldn't have done that. At the second ferry, I had to wait for almost 3 hours because they switched to the winter schedule on August 24th.

But I was rewarded with a little globe again, it stood on a small fjord island and told me that I just passed the Arctic Circle in a southern direction this time.

When I left this ferry, it was already almost 5:00 PM.

But since I'm stubborn, I decided to go to Namsen today and I made it. Arrival at 10:30 PM, 3 hours of heavy rain at 7 degrees Celsius. But what really got to me was my GPS, was it trying to save toll, take a shortcut, or drive me crazy? I don't know. There were some construction sites on the route that had to be bypassed on smaller roads. So I didn't think much of it when my GPS told me to turn left for the first time. I drove on a remote road, which honestly surprised me. When I then read the sign Sweden straight ahead, I slammed on the brakes. After double-checking with my phone, I saw the problem, wrong direction. I entered it again and drove a whopping 50 km on partially unpaved roads, or whatever you call it. At night, heavy rain, and the cold, I could barely speak and I shivered all over from the cold when I arrived. What I almost forgot to mention, in the afternoon I was able to observe dolphins on the edge of a fjord, and on my rainy drive in the cold night, I saw two moose on the side of the road, at first I thought they were horses until I spotted their antlers. Unfortunately, I couldn't take any pictures. The dolphins were too far away to take any meaningful photos with my phone, and at that time, the moose simply didn't matter.

I have to explain briefly what I'm actually doing here. The Namsen is the king of wild salmon rivers in Norway. The season for catching fish only goes until the end of August, then it's over until spring. Since I like to fish every now and then, I couldn't resist this. Not that I ever caught so many fish. For me, it's more meditation than food procurement.

My family laughs when I pack my fishing gear. The last time I went fishing a few weeks ago, I came home with 3 half grilled chickens.