The next morning I took a closer look at my accommodation for the next few days. A large bathroom, a double bunk bed and a single bed. I could sleep in a different bed every night. 😊 A small living room with a fireplace. I didn’t use it. In the evening, I only turned on the electric heating from time to time. A small kitchen with microwave (no cooker), kettle and coffee maker.
Across the street from my Airbnb accommodation was a “joker shop” (small grocery shop). There I found everything I needed for breakfast.
What should I do today? I had gotten lots of tips from my Norwegian friends, but what first. The weather was cloudy, but no rain. Since I wanted to do a lot of hiking, I decided to go in search of hiking pants first. So I went to the shopping centre City Nord first.
In the XXL (outdoor shop) I also found hiking trousers, but they were either too small or too big. I really tried on all the trousers available, but unfortunately I left the shop without any hiking trousers. Instead, I had a crab sandwich with coffee. I even ordered this in Norwegian. While I was doing this, I thought about what I wanted to see today. I could choose between a hike on Keiservarden or a visit to the Museum of Flight. I decided on the hike. It was only cloudy and not raining, so I went for a hike and if it rained I could always go to the Museum of Flight.
My golf pants were converted into hiking pants and off we went to Keiservarden. I got lost a couple of times before reaching the Maskinisten car park, but eventually found it. 😊
It was 5 km along a gravel road to the top of Keiservarden. So not a challenging hike. On the way there were always benches where you could have a picnic.
I didn’t have time for a picnic, because I had an appointment for fish soup at 5 pm. Virgil had invited me spontaneously. So it was off to the top. 😊
The view is certainly much better when the sun is shining. I was pleased that it wasn’t raining. I didn’t have time to linger long, because I didn’t want to keep Virgil and the fish soup waiting. 😊
Halfway back, I realised that I had totally miscalculated the time. I couldn’t possibly be at the car park at Saltstraumen at 5pm. Quickly wrote a message that I would be late. Normally I’m always on time when I make appointments.
On the last few metres to the car park it started to rain. In the car, I looked for the car park in my sat nav. I had also completely underestimated the route to the car park. Oh man, was I embarrassed, where I am usually always on time, I would be more than half an hour late. What would Virgil think of me? I sent him a printscreen from my sat nav and hoped he would wait. An “ok” came back. I almost drove past the car park too, but at the last moment I saw his car and managed to turn off. I stuttered something like an apology together, because I was still embarrassed about my lateness. It must have looked pretty funny, because Virgil grinned. Then we finally had the fish soup. It was really delicious. 😋
When we came back outside, it had stopped raining and we decided to take a little walk to the Saltstraumen. From the shore you can see the eddies quite well, but from such a rafting boat (picture below left) even better.
We found a bench and looked out over the water for a while, talked and I took several photos before everyone went home again.
That was the end of the first day in Bodø. Before I fell asleep, I did some social networking (WhatsApp status and Instagram Story) for friends and acquaintances back home.