This time we had chosen the two beaches Eggum and Unstad for our day trip.
Arrived in Eggum, we parked our car below a small castle ruin on a parking lot.
From there you could easily walk down to the beach. The beach at Eggum is bigger than any other we have been to in Lofoten so far. Characterized by large round rocks washed by the sea, it stretches along the northwest coast of the island of Vestvågøy.
After a while the clouds loosened a bit and the beautiful light of the low sun was wonderful for a few photos.
Etwas hinterhalb des Strandes befindet sich ein See
, an dem ein einzelnes, eher unbewohnt wirkendes Haus steht. Der See war größtenteils zugefroren und mit Eisschollen bedeckt.
On the way back to our car, several white-tailed eagles flew over us once again, but again they were unfortunately too far away for a photo.
We continued on to Unstad, a beach that is especially popular with surfers and was at the top of Sandra's priority list. At least that was the plan ...
Auf dem Weg nach Unstad fährt man durch zwei Tunnel, über die ich schon im Reiseführer gelesen habe, dass sie oft als Wetterscheide fungieren. So kann es beispielsweise sein, dass man bei Sonnenschein in den Tunnel hineinfährt und man am anderen Ende von wildem Schneetreiben erwartet wird. Nachdem wir den ersten Tunnel passiert hatten, kam uns ein Postauto entgegen, dass immer langsamer wurde und uns andeutete, dass wir anhalten sollten. Also bremsten wir ab, kurbelten das Fenster herunter und hörten uns an, was der Mann zu sagen hatte. Leider war es norwegisch und wir haben kein Wort verstanden. Als er auf unser „in Englisch please“ nur mit „yes“ und sonst mit nichts mehr antwortete, waren wir zunächst verwirrt. Wir konnten aber dann noch irgendwas von gesperrter Straße und falschen Reifen heraushören und wunderten uns noch, wie er hätte erkennen wollen, dass wir falsche Reifen haben (was ja noch nicht einmal der Fall war). Wir bedankten uns also freundlich, lächelten und fuhren weiter.
But just a few meters later we realized what the man was talking about. The road was now quite steep and long uphill. Even from a distance we could see a vehicle ahead of us parked in the middle of the road, warning lights activated. We approached slowly on the completely ice-covered road and were then forced to stop as well, since the road was not wide enough to pass the other vehicle. Of course, this was more than unfavorable, because even our car, which was equipped with really good winter tires including spikes, would have had its problems here when starting again. So we stopped, Sandra got out and went to the VW bus that was blocking the road in front of us. As we had already assumed, he could not continue because of the slippery road ... but why he stopped at all remains a mystery. He told us that someone would come soon to tow him or free him from the predicament.
So nur was sollten wir tun? Weiterfahren konnten wir nicht, eine andere Straße nach Unstad gibt es nicht und zu Fuß war es definitiv zu weit, vor allem in Anbetracht der Tatsache, dass es schon ca. 13:30 Uhr war und wir somit nur noch knapp zwei Stunden Tageslicht hatten.
When Sandra came back to the car, in which I was still sitting, and was about to open the door, it started to slide slowly backwards, downhill. She quickly jumped into the driver's seat and pressed the brake pedal. So we slid down the icy road with our car despite having the handbrake on ... not a very good feeling and so we decided to slowly start our way back. I looked for a suitable place to turn around and Sandra drove slowly and very carefully backwards until we reached the place where we could turn around and drive forward down the hill again. Thanks to the spikes on our tires, everything worked out reasonably well, but we were still glad when we arrived back safely.
We waited quite a while to see if the tow truck would come and clear the road, but to no avail. So we turned back at some point, drove back to Leknes and decided to come back the next day and drive to Unstad.
High solar activity was predicted for the evening that day, and for a short time it was supposed to be only partly cloudy. Therefore we drove around 21:00 again to the beach of Uttakleiv, which is oriented to the north and northwest. So from here you should have the best view of the auroras when the sky is clear. We waited for the one or other snowstorm to pass and suddenly the sky really cleared up as announced and you could see the northern lights even with the naked eye. They became gradually more and more powerful and waved luminously over the night sky. Always a goosebump moment.
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