Andøya

A few months ago my cousin, Therese, said she could take some time off to go somewhere with me in September. So I asked her if there was anywhere she thought she wanted to go or something she wanted to see. Her answer was whales. So I started thinking and quickly decided on Andenes as I know Andenes Whalesafari has a guarantee, meaning you get to go out again if you don’t see anything. I’ve been to Andenes before but that was a long time ago (I was a teenager) and I didn’t really see much of the place, so I was excited to hike in the area and explore.

Therese and I headed out to the airport after work on a Thursday and flew up to Evenes airport in northern Norway. Therese said she could drive, I don’t like driving, and haven’t for a while but that’s another story. Unfortunately it’s not always easy to get around in the northern and western parts of Norway with public transportation. So we rented a car and drove to the hotel we were spending the first night at. As it was dark by the time we got there and Therese didn’t want to drive much in the dark we’d found a nice hotel not too far from the airport. We picked up food from a roadside grill on the way and ate in our room before bed. We were supposed to drive up to Andenes early as we’d booked the whale safari for the Friday, however, it was cancelled due to weather conditions.

Meaning Therese got to sleep a little bit longer, and I went for a sunrise walk. It was supposed to rain later but the morning was beautiful so I’m really happy I decided to go for that walk. The colours were beautiful as the sun was coming over the horizon, hidden by a mountain from where I was but I still saw the colours it created, and it was a beautiful autumn morning. On my way back to the hotel I found the first geocache of the trip. When I got back I relaxed a little before I woke Therese and we packed up. We had a little bit to eat in the cafe at the hotel and then headed out.

The drive up to Andøya, which is the Island Andenes is located on, is a beautiful one. The views are pretty amazing despite the rain we had on the way. We stopped a couple of times and I found a couple of geocaches on the way, but my main goal isn’t geocaching so I don’t make that a priority on trips like this.

I’d texted a friend of the family, my babysitter from when I was about 4 years old, when we arrived in the north the night before and she recommended a hike «on the way». Since the rain seemed to be letting up we decided to take the detour and try the hike. Gavltinden is located at the opposite end of Andøya from where we were going. Unfortunately it started raining again before we got to the trail, but we decided to go despite it.

The first kilometer wasn’t too bad as the path was wide and mostly of gravel, except the fact that we were getting wet, then the path narrowed to a trail but it was still an alright hike. Despite the rain and fog we did feel that it was a good hike. We took a few photo breaks along the way and had some fun, even though the weather conditions weren't optimal. And at some point along the way I got a bit stubborn about getting to the top. Therese wasn’t as happy about that but I think she was pretty proud when we did reach the top. We had some fun using the panorama photo function at the top, even though we couldn’t see much. But then, as if we were being rewarded for reaching the top, the rain stopped and the fog lifted. All of a sudden we could see the beautiful nature around us.

The hike back down was breathtaking and we were proud to have made it to 662 meters above sea level. When we arrived at our hotel in Andenes about an hour after getting down from the hike we freshened up and went to find food. Because of the pandemic a lot of restaurants have reduced opening hours and some are closed, and Andenes, which is a small place at the northern tip of Andøya doesn’t have many to begin with. With a little help from my friend though we found a place and could sit down and enjoy a lovely meal and a glass of wine. After our meal we went to a small pub and had a couple of drinks. The place wasn’t too full, but there were quite a few people there, and the bartender was a bubbly woman who instantly knew we were visitors. I have a feeling all the other guests were locals. We left around closing time, which is midnight these days, and went to bed.

I had concidered another morning walk on the Saturday but ended up wanting to sleep in a little. The weather was supposed to be good from around 10am so we planned on eating breakfast around 9am. We took our time with the meal and weren’t out the door until after 10am. I suspected the hike I had planned for this day wouldn’t be too tough though and I was proven right. We walked up a nice dirt road to Ramnan where you can see Bleik on the other side of the mountain range. The views around this area are absolutely amazing and we had so much fun taking photos and being silly up there. We also found a geocache, that is; Therese found it for me. We had concidered going up to another one of the tops here but decided to just cut across the side of the mountain for a bit and then head back down.

This way we’d have time to relax a bit before freshening up and going out for a sunset walk, dinner and drinks. The sunset walk on this particular day was one of the best decicions I’ve ever made. It was spectacular!

And we had so much fun with photos as we were walking by the water, with the skye constantly changing until it started getting dark. After the sun had set we headed back toward the little town and ended up at the same restaurant as the night before as the other restaurant that was still open was fully booked. We did a repeat of the night before and went to the pub for a drink. This time it was pretty full though and after the one drink we decided to go. And here is where I didn’t use my head. We went to bed, despite the sky being clear; we could see the stars. As we later learned there had been northern lights that night I am kicking myself for not going back to the hotel for warmer clothes and then heading back out.

We had decided to start early on the Sunday, we always seem to be delayed though. We checked out and headed towards Bleik where we parked the car and started our third hike of the trip at 9:15am. What none of the trail maps told me was that the trail I had selected for the day was no ordinary hike. The first hour was fine, we started with a dirt road along the beach and then a trail going around the mountain along the water. But then it started becoming rocky and we had to constantly look for the red markings. It was a really tough hike, the trail got steeper than we liked and I did get splashed pretty good by the sea. But it wasn’t all bad, we did see a small animal running down the side of the mountain, I believe it was a mink, and we saw a soaring sea eagle which I got a couple of decent photos of. We were extremely happy when the rocky part of the trail was over though, and we could see the beautiful beach at Otervika.

When we stopped to take a few photos a girl, the first person we had seen, caught up with us and she was just as chatty as we are, so we walked together for a while. We stopped to take some photos by a lake a little up the side of the mountain before taking on the steep mountain trail going up. It turnes out we took a wrong turn when the trail split in the mountain side, my fault I guess, as I thought it looked like the path I wanted to take was the trail marked on the map, it turned out to be wrong, and that way might have taked a little longer. We did get to «the top» though. As we got topside Therese and I decided not to go up to Måtinden though, we had been walking for a long time by then and the trail so far had taken us as long as I had thought the whole hike would take.

So we started walking back towards Bleik. We still got some amazing views along the way. The way back was a lot better than the way we had taken out along the water, it was still pretty steep going down though. When we finally got back to the car it was past 7pm, we’d been out for about 10 hours and we were tired, Therese even more than me. I managed to get into a workout routine this spring and I seem to be reaping benefits from that when going on these long hikes. We were both looking forward to an evening on my friends sofa though. We drove up to her house, had a shower, put on comfy clothes and settled in for an evening of chatting on the sofa. We were spending the next couple of nights at her house.

Monday morning was a rainy one and we were a bit afraid it would be raining during the whale safari that had been rescheduled for this day. Luckily the weather changed a little after the boat left the harbour, we could see a rainbow in the distance and we even had sun out at sea. And this company does know what they’re doing, so after about an hour we started spotting the spouts from whales. As they also have hydrophones under the boat they could tell us they had identified two spermwhales and we would hang around the area waiting for them to come up. As always, one wishes to have been even closer to the animals, but we did get pretty close a few times.

After we got back to Andenes we decided to go for a little walk, and I found a geocache, then we headed back and had dinner at the restaurant at the whale center, which was decent. We went for another sunset walk, it wasn’t as great as the Saturday, not by a long shot, but I had some fun playing with my camera at the beach. I also ended up going back to the beach to look for northern lights later that night, but there were a lot of clouds. We spent the evening relaxing on the sofa.

Tuesday morning we took our time getting ready, had the leftovers from my pizza dinner for breakfast, had coffee and tea, got packed and didn’t leave the house until after 11am. Later than I had planned on, but it was nice to just take our time in the morning. We headed to Andenes to check out some of the shops and to say goodbye to our host as she was at work in the book (and craft) shop she runs. And then after another geocache find and a visit to to local bakery for some things for the road we got in the car and started driving towards the airport. We ended up driving it without any stops (it takes about 3 hours), and then decided to have dinner at the roadside grill by the airport, since we were early.

And with that another adventure was over. I really do love Andøya, it’s a beautiful island in the area called Vesterålen, and I highy recommend a visit if you like scenic hikes. We were very happy we booked a longer stay in the area as the weather conditions play a big part and we would have missed the whale safari if we had gone home one day earlier. I guess we also learned that I don’t always understand a map and that not all trails are well enough marked according to difficulty level. I wouldn’t recommend the route we took to Otervika unless you are in really good shape and maybe like climbing. But I believe most of the other trails in the area are better. I would love to come back here one day and take on more of the trails as I had so much fun challenging myself, taking in the beautiful nature and playing with my camera. There are still a lot of areas I'd like to explore in my beautiful country though, and in Europe for that matter.