Travelling with the MS Lofoten: Stamsund – Trondheim Feb 19 2019

This article is part of the series “2019-02: Northern Norway”.

I’m writing this blog article from the train. We left Trondheim central station ten minutes ago at 7:50, at 9:22 I’ll be Storlien in Sweden where I’ll have to change train. But back to the day before yesterday evening. The Hurtigruten ship MS Lofoten had just left Stamsund …

22:30 – we just had left Stamsund. The next stop would be Bodø at 2:30 in the night.

Monday, 18 February

As expected I overslept Bodø, stop #18 of my Hurtigruten journey to Trondheim. I was awakened by a loud, squeaky noise. It was our ship leaving Ørnes, stop #19. It scraped along the huge truck tires that are fixed to all piers to avoid damages and made an awful noise. One hour later I stood on deck and looked at the MS Spitsbergen, the ship that Chris and I visited eight days ago. It had been in Bergen and now was returning to Kirkenes.

At half past nine we passed Polarsirkelmonumentet, a monument marking the polar circle. It looks a bit alike as the more famous monument at the North Cape.

But – where’s the winter? We were not only going south, we also had unusually warm weather for mid-February. Beside of the higher mountains most snow had melted and the landscape looked more like a rainy September day than the middle of winter.

Later there was a little ceremony for having crossed the polar circle. I have crossed it many times but I participated too. Obediently, I took a spoonful of cod liver oil, because I wanted to have the spoon that you may keep.

I have to admit, that the journey started to become a bit boring. The winter was far up north, the weather was warm and rainy and I’ve been on the ship for three days already. I made some pictures anyway.

Next stop Nesna, stop #20.

Next stop Sandnessjøen, stop #21.

Here I even took some detail photos of the MS Lofoten from the pier.

We travelled along the Helgelandskysten, the coast of Helgeland. It’s a well-known scenic route which Annika and I took some years ago after having visiting friends in Norway. First it showed a funny combination of ancient mountains and modern functional houses.

De syv søstre (the seven sisters) came into view and seemed to follow us for half an hour. This is a quite impressive mountain range with seven summits. Some of the tops were in the clouds that made the view maybe less postcard compatible but in my opinion more impressive. The mountains looked higher with their summits hanging in the clouds.

Next stop Brønnøysund, stop #22. Here we had a stopover of an hour. When I left the ship rain was pouring down and I was glad about my Gore-Tex clothes that I actually didn’t plan to wear before April.

We left Brønnøysund at 17:00 and it was still quite light. Half an hour later it became so dark that you could hardly see anything but the lights of towns, villages, streets, cars and other ships.

Next stop Rørvik, stop #23 and the last stop before Trondheim. The weather was just as bad and Rørvik in a rainy winter evening is probably not the most beautiful place, especially when there’s a huge construction site in the middle of the village. Soon I returned to the ship that lay head-to-head with the Hurtigruten ship Nordlys. Some very last photos of the tour.

At half past nine we left Rørvik. I was already lying in my bed in cabin 121. The alarm clock was set to 6 o’clock in the next morning. The next day we would arrive in Trondheim where I would leave the Hurtigruten, take a taxi to the railway station and then the 7:50 train to Storlien. There I would take another train to Sundsvall and a third one to Umeå. In Umeå I would stay with Annika for a night and travel home by bus the next day.

Our train just stopped in Gudå. 20 more kilometres and I’ll be back in Sweden. Ha det bra, Norge. Takk for turen.