Into the fjords ... Chelsia on the ferry to Narvik.
It's quiet in Bodo. The town has an air of tranquillity, and the sea is so calm and blue I can see the kelp on the anchor chains at the bottom of the harbour. Even the gulls are muted and what little traffic there is seems to go by in whispers. The midnight sun adds a touch of unreality, and I am beginning to feel the accoutrements of city life slipping away.
The main attraction of Bodo is not the town itself but its access to fantastic outdoor activities - this is nature in the raw on land and sea. (It has the world's largest whirlpool - 400 million cubic metres of water rushing through a 150-metre-wide hole at 20 knots!) I stood in the queue for the ferry to the tiny island of Helligvaer, one of the many inhabited little islands around here - excellent for trekking and fishing, boasting 2km of road and one car - a beginning taste of wilder life. But a group off the MS Lovensen, which had just anchored, had block booked, so there was no room for me on that one (are these the same cruisers who kept me out of my accommodation?).
Pity I am not a golfer - the local course can be played 24 hours a day in summer - a challenge for anyone from the Wimbledon Golf Club, perhaps? But I did visit to the charming and very informative Nordland Museum, where I began my investigation of the Sami culture. Here I saw a 400-year-old runebonne, used by the Sami to practise their original Shaman religion. When the Sami were Christianised, almost all runebonne were destroyed, so this exhibit was particularly special. And just to bring us up to date, in the last room is a giant yellow toothbrush - the insignia of the local football team, donated when they won their local cup competition and put Bodo on the map! That was in the '70s - so are England's 3 Lions destined for museum status? Almost next to the museum is the Bodo Cathedral, an intriguing, light, modern building, and where the organist, while not in the running for St Paul's, creditably put Bach's B Flat major Prelude & Fugue through its paces, and set me up for the next leg of my journey.
From Bodo I have to bus to Narvik, as the rail line has come to an end. We twist round fjords and through tunnels and past spectacular, snow-covered peaks, of shapes that must have inspired the grimmer fairy tales. This is definitely troll country. Then the road abruptly comes to an end as a cliff drops into a fjord, and we are swallowed up in the mouth of a waiting ferry. The fjord is surrounded by mountains, and it is difficult to guess where we are headed, but it is a still day - perfect for a sea trip. We are spat out after rounding a headland, and the road continues over mountains into Narvik.
You don't want to hang about too long in Narvik. It is just a changeover place, really, and tomorrow I'll be heading for Kiruna, the northernmost town in Sweden and near the northern part of the Sarek.
