Midnight Sun

• By admin
• June 21, 2016
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Driving at 11.30pm

Midnight

The occurrence of the midnight sun was one I had yet to experience. Although the hours of darkness had been decreasing to a minimum as we travelled further north we had yet to witness 24 hours of unremitting sunshine. During our penultimate day in the Lofotens Graeme felt his collarbone enough repaired to try balancing on two wheels again. After a small struggle in getting the bikes off the rack; the rack being very high and the bikes very heavy, we set off for the fishing village of Henningsvaer. The bike ride went well, no big hills, empty roads and Graeme managed to stay on! The village is a working fishing village with lots of stockfish racks filled with drying cod. Seeing these decorating the village we were reminded that we had yet to taste it. A quick search on the internet and we were cycling back to the van and heading for Svolvaer, the biggest town of all the islands, and a restaurant renowned for its cooking of stockfish. The restaurant was in an old fish warehouse, the inside resembled the inside of a ship with low ceilings and uneven floors. I’m happy to report there was nothing low or uneven about the stockfish. It tasted delicious, served with scrambled eggs and carrots, it sounds strange combination but was a perfect accompaniment to the flavour of the dried cod which was as succulent and fresh tasting as if it had just been hooked – and to be consumed with red wine, not white apparently, advice that Graeme readily took.

We left the restaurant at 11.00pm and in brilliant sunshine I donned my sunglasses and drove to Larvik, a promontory on the north coast about 30 minutes away. We parked the van on the seashore and with nothing between us and the sun, we watched as the fiery ball barely touched the horizon before it started to rise again. A spectacular sight and happy ending to an extraordinary day of re-cycling, (Graeme back on his bike), reconstitution (the stockfish) and a remarkable phenomenan.