Fjord Escort

I've been spending the last couple of days getting snowed on and heading back to where I started. This direction we've been passing that scenery stuff during daylight, which has the advantage of being able to see it. It's been some of the big name stuff that we've passed too: Trollfjord, Torghatten, The Seven Sisters (they were trolls before they were mountains, don't you know?), Raftsundet - all things that I hadn't heard of two weeks ago.

I've seen a couple of those town things too. I stopped at Svolvaer, which was positively abuzz with the cod fishing championships, and Bronnoysund, a town that has probably never been described as "abuzz".

Seen a couple more wildlifes. I saw a white tailed sea eagle (or an erne as my Dad would have loved to have pointed out) relatively close up, she came to inspect my lunch - she was out of luck, I'm not great at sharing lunch. I also saw four or five dark leapy things, they were quite far away but I suspect that they were minke whales. Still no puffins though.

So, Norwegian fjords box ticked. What have we learnt?

1. Most fjords are a lot less fjordy than I expected. In my head fjords are narrow with thousand foot high cliffs on either side. Most of the fjords I've seen are really quite wide with relatively gentle slopes. Guessing that both types exist, Norway does have a phenomenally long coast line after all (longer than Africa apparently - I've not checked that fact,  but it's too good not to regurgitate, never let the truth get in the way of a good yarn). Guessing that my fjord stereotypes aren't navigable in a car ferry in winter. I blame Slartibartfast.

2. You have to be fairly lucky to see the Northern Lights and even if you see them there's no guarantee that they won't be rubbish.

3. Norwegians love a statue. It seems that whether you're busking (Svolvaer), selling fish (Kristiansund) or waiting for a bus (Tromso) if you stand still long enough someone will carve you.