Thankfully, the Captain’s warning about rough seas and maybe high winds, that could prevent us tendering ashore, came to nought (the pessimistic weather forecasts have thankfully been just that – pessimistic). First pic shows him on the bridge checking! We’d booked on a ship’s tour ‘Easy Lofoten Islands Drive’. Sounds odd, an islands (plural) drive, without a boat.
Breakfast buffet on this ship consists of the main Horizon Court – both sides, plus the Caribe café at the rear. It has taken until now to realise that the options in the Caribe are fewer than the Horizon Court, which explains why at times, there was just one sausage choice in Caribe and three in HC! Equally, grilled kidneys only in one and not the other.
A fairly late meet of 9:30am, by which time, the tenders were going well. On the tender to shore we sat opposite great American couple from New Jersey. No doubt we won’t see them again either.
Once ashore, we found that there was a shuttle bus to the nearby small town of Leknes – we didn’t know about that beforehand. The port, or to be more precise, the dock, is Gravdal.
We headed for the fishing village of Ballstad, but the stop was just 10 minutes for a photo opportunity and to be honest, there wasn’t much to see and no sign of any locals at all. The local claim to fame is for salted cod, which is hung outside on drying racks - but not at this time of the year.
On then to the white sand beaches of Haukland and Utakleiv. This was posted as an ‘easy’ tour, which for us, it was. For the lady with a wheel chair, trying to get to the public toilets which were across a short stretch of sand, it was far from easy.
The picture inside the door of the gents was worth a photograph. Despite the temperature that away from the wind and the coast, was no more than 15c, there were hardy souls camping. Not swimming. These beaches were reached via an 880m long tunnel – single lane road. In fact, most of the roads were single lane, with an occasional passing bay. At one house, I saw a Pontiac TransAm muscle car parked, but quite where he’d be able to give that any stick is anyone’s guess.
The second of the two beaches, was not too far from a house and presumably, it was their friendly cat greeting visitors. Several sheep around too, often just sitting or lying on the road. According to our guide, Lofoten lamb is the best in the world and commands a high price in the export markets. So now you know. Not NZ lamb, nor Welsh lamb.
There were some interesting rock formations to be seen and this was a pleasant 2 hour tour, but at $80US each, not exactly cheap. Our guide was fine though his English was sometimes a little difficult to understand, but at least he didn’t talk non-stop. Back at the dock, the souvenir shop had Wi-Fi access – but it wasn’t free. As the whole of this cruise has been in Norway, souvenirs at each tend to be the same, so Paula has limited it to a postcard or two.
Back on board, we hit the Horizon Court and actually had a meal rather than just soup.
Cabin for blogging and nana nods were the afternoon’s activities – or lack of and we didn’t even make Trivia.
Dinner wasn’t the best we have had and the beef stroganoff was more like an Asian stir fried beef than the creamy dish we prefer. Paula did manage a Bailey’s and another shot glass.
We weren’t keen to see the female singer in the theatre, so headed for the Explorer’s lounge and the game show ‘Fill In The Blanks’. The success or otherwise of these shows depends on whether the crew play it sensibly or for laughs. We could have done with more laughs, but it passed the time. To kill more time, another casino visit to watch people throwing their money away, but this time, the caps table was deserted and we watched the roulette for a while. Not very exciting.
As we are now heading south, we are away from the midnight sun, so sunrise tomorrow is listed as 2:10am, sunset, 11:30pm.
A sea day tomorrow with a forecasted high of 12 degrees. It will probably be the last day for sending our laundry, so time to send everything we have worn that will need ironing and time to restrict ourselves to easy wash gear! We have already started cramming some of the vacuum packed items into the sports bag, so our thoughts are definitely geared to packing and the end of the cruise, even though it is still a few days away.
Just two ports to go now and we are on a wait list for Skjolden, having changed our minds – again – having cancelled earlier. Bergen we’ll do on our own, but as mentioned before, it is the shortest port day of the whole trip, with the scheduled times, 7:00am arrival and all aboard 1:30pm. A bit mean, given that it is one of the largest places, if not the largest, on this trip.
The positive news for the day which will no doubt fill the NZ newspapers, is that NZ won the America’s Cup race series, so NZ will be hosting the next one. No doubt our NZ friends who are on their Baltics cruise about now, will be having an extra drink to celebrate.
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