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Adventure
Excitement
Culinary experiences
Encounters
I've been asked, 'What's the most beautiful place on earth?'
In this episode, I'll take you there.
To Vesterålen and Lofoten in north-western Norway.
We'll travel by boat, by car and by foot.
Welcome to Gone Camping. Let's go!
It's easy to see why so many books and films have been inspired-
-by the magical landscape here in the archipelagos of Lofoten and Vesterålen.
The small villages and red cabins are surrounded by high mountains-
-deep, green valleys and snow-white beaches.
Few people go for a swim, though. The water temperature is rarely above 10°C̊.
The strikingly beautiful landscape is a driving hazard.
It's hard to keep your eyes on the road.
It's a good thing there are many parking places...
There's a beautiful one in the village of Reine, in the south of Lofoten.
Imagine you're at a grand film premiere, and you have front row seats.
Plus, you can enjoy the show either in standard TV format or in widescreen.
The landscape is even more beautiful if you go by foot-
-along one of the many marked footpaths.
There are maps that indicate routes that take 1.5 – 2 hours-
-as well as more advanced full-day hikes.
One reason behind my love for Lofoten is that I have my roots here.
A hundred years ago, my maternal grandmother was born-
-in a remote part of Selfjorden.
Her childhood home is still there-
-despite the fact that it was partly built using old wooden crates.
For me, it's impossible to imagine that she and her nine siblings-
-called this their home.
I asked her once, 'Did you fight a lot? I mean, eleven people in that house!'
She just said, 'No, we didn't.'
'We didn't have anything, so there was nothing to fight over.'
There's one mode of transport that's synonymous with Norway: Hurtigruten.
The ships visit 34 ports between Bergen in the south and Kirkenes in the north.
Five of these ports are located in Lofoten and Vesterålen.
You can't bring your motorhome or caravan because of height restrictions.
This is a once-in-a-lifetime experience, not to be missed.
My advice is to cruise for a few hours, hop off, have lunch, do some shopping-
-and then take the next boat back.
We decided to go from Stokmarknes to Svolvær.
It's a three-hour trip that takes us to the dramatic Raftsund Strait-
-and then into the famous Troll Fjord.
The mountains fall vertically into the fjord-
-and white-tailed eagles circle above us.
The waterfalls throw themselves off the cliff.
I wouldn't be surprised if Gandalf and some Hobbits-
-came walking along the shore. It's easy to understand-
-why Hurtigruten is called 'the World's Most Beautiful Sea Voyage'.
For us campers, there's loads to choose from. There are no big resorts.
Instead, there are simple but functional sites-
-where nature is the centre of attention.
My personal favourite was Midnattsol Camping in Bleik on Andøya.
A small and personal site where you park right by the beach.
Here at Gone Camping, we like food that's delicious and easy to make.
Tonight's menu is no exception.
I'll be making grilled lime salmon with chilli and vegetables.
Take one sheet of kitchen foil per portion.
Drizzle on a tablespoon of oil and add the salmon.
Time for some seasoning. Start with some lemon pepper.
A couple of turns of the salt grinder...
Add one finely chopped clove of garlic.
Add some spice with chopped chilli pepper.
Top with sprigs of thyme.
Grate some lemon zest and squeeze some lemon juice over the salmon.
Fold the foil into a parcel to be placed on the grill.
Scrunch up the edges properly to avoid leakage.
While the salmon cooks, I'll prepare the asparagus.
Split the stems to reduce the grilling time.
I'll use the cheese slicer in a way it's probably never been used before:
To slice a zucchini.
Add some olive oil to prevent it from sticking, plus some salt.
The vegetables are now ready to join the salmon on the grill for 2–3 minutes.
Voilà! On the menu tonight at Restaurant Motorhome:
Norwegian fjord salmon with chilli, lime and grilled vegetables.
To balance the spicy food, we'll drink a semi-dry white wine, a Riesling.
Bon appé***.
Go to Camping.se to get the recipe
Ten minutes north of Bleik is the small fishing village of Andenes.
Here, you can enjoy world-class whale watching.
It comes with a *** whale guarantee.
The trip starts at the museum, where a guide talks about these unique giants.
They can dive down to a depth of several kilometres to catch their food.
Then you board the M/S Reine.
I asked researcher Norbert what methods they use for finding the whales.
We have two methods for spotting whales.
One is our eyes, really. That's a basic method for tracking down whales.
The other one is through acoustics.
*** whales make certain clicks by echolocation to find their prey.
These echo clicks are really loud. You can hear them with hydrophones-
-which are underwater microphones. We have two mounted on our boats.
One on the left side, and one on the right side.
The captain and the cabin crew hear it in stereo.
If the signal comes louder from the right-
-then we turn our boat a little bit to the right.
It takes about an hour to reach the continental shelf where the whales are.
We don't have to wait too long.
Suddenly, we see a spurt of water in the distance.
The whale we just saw was no. 47.
I think it was a biggie. It was 16 metres, something like that.
When you see it on the surface, you see it from the tip of its nose-
-which is the front of the animal, and the dorsal fin. It's 2/3 of the animal.
We saw like 10 metres, so there's another 5 metres. In total 16 metres.
Sometimes we even give them names, if we see them quite often.
This one might be getting a name soon, because we see it quite often here.
It's important for us to identify certain individuals.
For example, we've seen an individual here-
-which has also been seen in the Azores, in Portugal.
That's how we proved that it moved from one site to another. It's migrating.
The *** whale is the most common whale here in Andenes.
It can be seen on almost every trip.
You can also spot killer whales, minke whales, pilot whales-
-porpoises and humpback whales.
No matter what you spot, it's exciting and educational-
-because this trip combines whale watching and research.
It doesn't get much better than this – great weather and whales.
Lofoten and Vesterålen are incredibly beautiful.
I hope I've managed to pique your curiosity so that you'll come here.
Thank you for joining us on our trip to northern Norway.
Hope to see you soon, either on this show, or out on the road.
The whale watching trip was offered by Whalesafari Andenes.
The ferry routes are operated by Hurtigruten.
We stayed at Sortland Camping-
-Ramberg Gjestegård and Midnattsol Camping in Bleik.