The Road to Bodø
Enlightment
The city's name is pronounced like Buddha, but without the h. And a longer u. Wikipedia even has an audio file of the pronounciation!
The word "bodo" means "dumb" in Indonesian slang.
Despite being on this adventure, I was still a lazy ass, and woke up quite late that day. As an excuse, I did have some alcohol and we did come home at 2:45 the night before! I think I got up at 11:00, much later than I wanted. I packed my things and said good-bye to Hanne and Laura. Laura's flight to the Netherlands was leaving from the nearby airport later that day, so she was in no hurry. I started walking to the bus stop planning to go to the north-east side of the city. The day before I had already been looking for good places to stand, because the actual E6-"highway" passes through the city center and returns to a highway (if you can call it that) in that area. But near the bus stop near Hanne's place there was also the entry/exit of the highway. Deciding to save time and the bus-fare, I decided to wait there. In hindsight, I wonder if it was such a good place to wait. At least there was a tree I could stand under, since it was such a hot day that day (compared to the weather of the previous days). So I stood there and stuck my thumb (and Bodø sign) out.
For some perspective, Trondheim to Bodø is 713 km. So it was quite an optimistic goal. I guess after managing Karlsruhe to Hamburg (625 km) in one day I felt it was do-able.
The Timetable for that day
From my notebook. The times are all approximate. It's wrong too, I took a picture at Åsen at 17:00, so Somie must've picked me up earlier, and I didn't wait for 2 hours at that spot until she arrived. It felt like 2 hours though!
- 13:14 Nardokrysset
- 14:30
Family of 3 - 14:40 Just outside of Trondheim
- 16:30 Somie
- 17:30 Åsen
- 18:00 Pål
- 18:40 Steinkjer
- 19:00 Steinar
- 02:15 Arrive Mo I Rana
- 06:30 Leave Mo I Rana
- 10:00 Bodø
Helicopter Anyone?
There's even a bird's eye view of the place I ended up waiting at. I stood behind the guardrails to the left of the zebra crossing.
After waiting for an hour and 15 minutes, a car finally stopped for me. It was a family of three, (a couple and their little baby), who unfortunately wasn't going far, because they live in Trondheim. They had just returned from holidays, and was just a few miles away from home. The husband said the palce I stood wasn't a strategic place to stand (I knew that much), but unfortunately he wanted to let me off at the side of the busy highway. I didn't like that idea that much, so he got off the highway and let me off at the entry road, which was not a bad place. Looking at the map now, it was plain to see that most cars leaving Trondheim going north would take this entrance to the highway, if they haven't entered the highway before...
Nevertheless, it was another one and a half hours of waiting before I got a lift, no one probably was going 700-plus kilometers so late in the afternoon. Funny thoughts start occuring to you when car after car passes you. I tried changing the world through will-power: "Come on, one of the next 5 cars will stop!"
I also started to wonder if I should move to a different place, maybe it will be easier to get a ride there. "But no, keep waiting here, a few more cars, a few more minutes, then we'll move."
After almost 2 hours of waiting, a car stopped. YEAH!!! It's always an exhilirating feeling, maybe like winning the lottery after playing for many years. The driver was a lady named Somie, a girl from - some country which I unfortunately have forgotten - who's moved to Norway. She's was very nice, she wasn't actually going far, but she drove out of the way until we found the next gas station. Before that we made a stop at a house she and her husband was renovating, for a refugee family who was coming to Norway. What kind people! The village - if you can call it that - was idyllic, houses next to the water, warm day, blue skies.. hah!
We also drove past Hell! Yeah! Too bad I didn't get any pictures! Had I known it wasn't that far I would've taken the bus to visit the place.
Åsen, where we parted ways, was still the middle of nowhere, but luckily it was on the only piece of road - to be more accurate: on the major road, the by now enough-mentioned E6 - that leads to Bodø. By then it was 17:00, so I wondered where I would sleep that night. I was basically standing near a gas station, the gas station was next to the road, and it was the middle of nowhere! Just empty fields with tall grass (don't ask me, I'm not a botanist) all around.
I thought of sleeping outside that night, I had a tent after all (a virgin unused one), but i didn't want to sleep next to the road, and everything was pretty open, I didn't want to the village people (not saying that in an insulting way) wondering why there's a guy camping on a field near them either.
The Path Travelled
Retracing these steps now is as fun as travelling them back then, I noticed in the picture, it's an Esso gas station, so I looked up information on gas stations in a navigation software. The Esso station is located at the corner where E6 branches off to road 753. I noticed there's a church in the picture. Googling "Kirke 753 Asen" tells me that's the... Asen Church. And I have to laugh at the fact that Wikipedia has that information.
After hoping for a bit that waiting at the small gas station would bring luck (it didn't, it was a small gas station, and it was at the wrong side of the road), I started walking towards the village proper, along the E6. By this time it was no longer a highway, so there was a footpath next to it, separated by one meter or so of grass.
I ended up at the village proper, where there were bus stops, a grocery store, and parking outside of that store. I stood at the bus stop (so a car would have a place to stop if he wants to pick me up) some distance away from the store. I suppose the people going grocery shopping was wondering why there's a guy with a huge backpack and a sign that says "Bodø" standing next to the road in their village/town/civilization in the middle of a long long road. As usual, I was thinking of plan B, what if I didn't get a lift, where would I sleep that night. The sky was graying too...
In the middle of being amused at my situation (how did I end up at this place from Karlsruhe, Germany!), a car pulled over and stopped. WOW! Yeah, my next ride!
The driver of that car was Pål (pronounced Pol, or Paul for the Anglophones). He had stopped his car quite abruptly, it surprised me. I said to him, if I were in that situation I would have not bothered stopping, considering it could've been dangerous too. He said something along the lines of "no need to thank me, I have to stop and pick hitch-hikers up!". It turns out he's also a traveller, he'd recently spent time in Australia, and he felt travellers should help each other. I was grateful, especially as it started raining really heavily as we cruised the highway.
Paul was going to Snåsa, to a friend's party. We spent only a short time on the road, but he was very friendly and helpful. He was even thinking how he could find me a place to sleep at a friend's place if I didn't get a ride.
We parted ways in Steinkjer, he was getting off the E6 way and down a quieter, less-travelled road. He told me I should go to a particular restaurant that the truckers like to stop at - it was still a far way aways from the city - and he gave me his business card and told me to call him if I needed help. Heh, like I said, great guy.
The sky was still grey when I got out of his car, luckily it was under the roof of a gas station.
Steinkjer was a nice looking town on the side of a a big lake fjord with a small river that goes through it. The dark clouds moved quickly and a few minutes later I could see the blue sky coming my way from over the water.
So I returned to the job: stand on the grass next to road and poke my thumb out.
After a short while, a yellow VW minibus slowed down, and the driver waved at me. He turned the road to stop, and as I ran to him screaming internally, I noticed it was more a cargo van then a bus, with a collapsible loading platform at the back. The back had windows, but no seats, and it was partially filled with crates. Whatever, a ride is a ride, I wondered where the driver was going as I got on.
Steinar was going all the way to Bodø. Which was great, no more waiting and wondering, just sitting in the car and getting to your destination. He was carrying berries - strawberries from Trondheim, raspberries from... somewhere - but he was getting some more on the way there. He said "I'm going to Trondheim, but with a few stops along the way."
"That's okay.", I said. I had the time and I was sure I'd enjoy the ride.
Strawberry Picking
The berries were being picked by workers who had come from Eastern Europe as summer workers. I was surprised at how far they travelled to do such work. I talked to some of them at one place, they lived in a pretty basic house which had been converted to look like a dorm, and some of them even in tents (probably by their own choice). One Polish guy said "Wow, you're the first Indonesian I've met".
Steinar was a one-man berry-selling operation, transporting and later selling them to the people who stop at his stand in the Bodø city center. He wanted to get to the city early the next morning - which meant almost non-stop driving. He was hoping I could drive so he could keep going all night, but unfortunately I couldn't.
So we drove in the sometimes wet, sometimes sunny afternoon, going along the roads between the farms and making stops there. We got some strawberries at one, and at another place cloudberries, or Molte as its known in Norwegian. What? Yeah, never heard of it before either.
From where I sit I could reach the raspberries. They were nice and sweet, and Steinar said I could take as many as I want. I regret that I was too shy to take him up on that offer, I only took a few handfuls.
We made a stop at a gas station - by this time the sky was grey again, as well as getting darker (hah, that photo was taken at 22:24!) - and while Steinar was filling the van I looked around a bit of the area and wowed at the long tall mountain range that seemed to cover the sky above the station. My picture of it doesn't do it justice.
We got some chocolate and cookies -- previously I had eaten some Jubelsalami with bread (very nice salami too!) and continued down (or up I guess) the road. The drive through the scenery, the secluded road and the dusk was getting more romantic now, the only think lacking that would make it more romantic for both of us was the companion we had! The solitude of the endlessly winding empty road with almost nothing but the forest left and right and darkness above was great though.
Shortly after midnight Steinar decided he needed a rest. He was planning to reach Mo i Rana and sleep for the night before continuing to Bodø in the morning, but he said he was too tired, and he needed a nap there. We stopped in front of an empty building - it was a karate school I think - in a little town called Mosjøen - and I got to spend a few minutes outside because he needed to lay down across the front seat of the car.
I wondered what sort of shady people might be out in town that night, in the background I could hear people who were playing with their cars, I was slightly afraid they would be thugs and beat me up. Also I was worried a police car might come by and start wondering why there's a foreign-looking person wondering around the place at night, taking pictures. "I'm a tourist" would have been a funny answer.
Steinar wanted to sleep 15 minutes or so, but I let him sleep for half an hour, he probably needed it. Soon we were back on the road again. He had to keep his cargo cool, so it was pretty chilly in the front area too, but I kept warm by sticking my feet in his sleeping bag. I was getting sleepy as well.
Soon after that we reached Mo i Rana. Steinar has 2 containers "parked" there, one of them was a freezer with a stock of blueberries, and the other was full of his junk - like a sign that says "Strawberries". We loaded up the car with some blueberries, and then it was 2:30 AM, time to sleep. If it had been a routine drive, Steinar would've slept in his car like before, but today was not routine; he had a hitchhiker. So he said, "you can sleep in here", and then gave me a tour of the container.
Oh well, it was better than sleeping outdoors.
After I got into my sleeping bag, it was pretty comfortable. Wait, no it wasn't, the floor was hard, my head was cold, and I didn't want the door to be fully closed because it was pretty dark in there! Then again, I managed to sleep.