The Bakery
July, 2022. Nusfjord, Arctic Norway.
We are walking on a ridge. It’s raining again, the weather changes drastically here in the Lofoten Islands. Clouds are covering the entire ridge, there is almost no visibility. There should be a fjord down there according to the map, and the view must have been beautiful from up here where we are standing a couple of meters high from the sea level. As we are getting a bit lower in altitude, the fjord starting to appear — it is beautiful, indeed.
We came down from the mountains and met a road. The rain is stronger now, and the wind makes it feel even stronger. We are soaked to the bone and we are not brave enough to stop walking due to lower temperatures. It has been a week of hiking already, from the North of the Lofoten Islands, covering about 80 kilometers and hiking peaks every day — there are 80 kilometers more to go. My buddy Finn and myself are stunned by the beauty of the peaks and islands, but at that time we were mentally low because of the constant rain since the morning and we were looking forward to pitching our tents, calling it a day, and eating some warm food.
We followed the road by the fjord and we ended up in this village, Nusfjord. As we walked through the village, we came across a bakery and it was open even though it was getting slightly later. We rushed in and grabbed some pastries and coffee. We were soaked but it was warm inside, protected from the rain, enjoying the fluffy pastries and a warm cup of coffee. The lady who runs the place told us that we’re closing very soon, and asked us if we could take the leftover pastries — there were 4–5 of them left — and we happily accepted the offer. What an offer.
That made our evening. We headed out, still raining, and started looking for a place to camp. We found somewhere outside of the village and pitched our tents by the fjord, they were still wet from the day before.
The weather forecast for the next day looks promising. We hoped that we could dry out our tents.
It was going to be a nice day.
I hiked the Long Crossing of Norway’s Lofoten Islands in the Summer of 2022. It took 2 weeks to cross the islands, covering around 160 kilometers. I started my hike alone, then I met with a stranger and we became friends, we reached the destination and celebrated together.
