Bodø; Thursday, 25 May, 2023

We opted for a late breakfast after the previous days travel and a relatively quiet day. It had mostly been for convenience that I’d booked two nights it Bodø rather than anywhere else, but after the previous long days of travel it was quite nice to have two nights in the same town and not be back on the road.

After breakfast we headed out for a wander around town, taking in the harbour, town hall and cathedral before a passing hail shower forced us to retreat back to the hotel for a quick cup of coffee and a quick check on the map to see what there was to do in the city.

As the weather was still fluctuating quite a bit between sunny and hailing we decided that rather than taking the bus and walking for 5 minutes we’d get a taxi out to the Jektefartsmuseet located on the other side of the peninsula that Bodø is on the end of.

The museum charts the history of the wooden boats that plied trade up and down the Norwegian coast for centuries, with their captains learning how to navigate the treacherous waters of the Norwegian sea and the islands and rocks that surround the country as they sailed the dried stockfish that represented the main production of Northern Norway down to the markets in Bergen to trade for grain and other goods which they then sailed back north again.

The centre piece of the museum is an original Jekt boat which shows quite how skilled the crews were and, with another hail storm battering on the windows, quite how unpleasant the conditions must have been.

Another key feature of the museum is it’s excellent café which we stopped in for a late lunch before calling for a cab and heading back into town.

By now the weather had calmed down a bit so I went for a longer wander round town, heading all the way down to the main harbour and the station to see which Hurtigruten was in and to watch it sail out of the harbour on it’s crossing over to the Lofton Islands. Normally I feel quite jealous for those onboard and the journey they are undertaking, but watching the ship already pitching and rolling before it had even left the harbour due to the winds I for once felt I was probably in the better place.

Later in the evening we headed down to the harbour to a small restaurant located by the bus station and local ferry terminal that we had spotted on our earlier wander for dinner, confirming what we’d seen on google that it was a great place to eat.

The walk back to the hotel took slightly longer as we quickly needed to head under cover as yet another hefty hail storm passed through, this one managing to cover the whole street in hail stones in just a few seconds making it look like a heavy snow shower.

Back at the hotel we had a quick drink in the bar before turning in for the night.