Travels with Spaniels: Island hopping in the Arctic

Tonight, Florence the motorhome is parked with her nose at the edge of a fjord on the island of Senja, the second largest in Norway outside of Svalbard. Above us is one of the fantastically over-engineered viewpoints that are scattered along the national scenic routes, in an effort to boost their tourism value. We have much the same view, and we're spending the night here, for free.

Senja from the sea

We arrived on Senja this afternoon, after a two hour ferry journey from Andenes, on the northern tip of Andøya. The sun shone, the sea was flat, and there were marvellous views at either end. In between we scanned the sea for whales, as they are often seen from shore here, and (fiercely expensive) whale watching trips offer guaranteed sightings. Today they were nowhere to be seen, but we enjoyed the warm sun and fresh air. As an added bonus there were hundreds of Arctic Terns at the quay in Andenes, and we'd had a great time over lunch in the ferry queue, watching them dipping and gliding like outsize swallows.

Florence avoids being flattened

We'd spent the night just a few miles outside Andenes, near another of the architecturally designed viewpoints at Bleik. We decided it wasn't quite on to park in the lookout, so we'd found a nice spot opposite, on what looked like the old road. As long as the cliff overhead didn't come down on us in the night, we'd be fine! Fortunately it didn't, and we returned to Bleik village this morning to take the spaniels for a wander along the trails behind the dunes and along the beach - the longest white sand beach in Norway.

The three scenic routes in this north west corner of Norway are separate, but linked. The chain of islands that runs up to the west looks like a single group, but while the southern ones belong to the Lofoten archipelago, to the north are the Vesterålen islands. The most northerly of these is Andøya, where we have spent the last three nights slowly working our way along the 50km road on the west of the island - the second of the scenic drives. If the Lofotens are like a craggier, shark-toothed version of Skye, then Andøya is like the west coast of Ireland, with the mountains of Mourne thrown in.

National Scenic routes in Norway: Andøya

View from the top of Måtind

There are long stretches of silver-sanded beaches, and vast flat areas of peat bog, and moor - mostly fairly dry at the moment. And then suddenly a peak of almost bare rock will thrust itself up through the moor, with almost nothing in between. Yesterday we set out to climb one of them, Måtind, a lovely little mound of 408m (1300 ft) with great views at the top, and enough technical bits to make it feel like a challenge. As before, Max found the climb quite difficult, so he and Nick took a perch in the heather while Elsa and I carried on over a tricky rock field to the top. This time we made it all the way to the cairn, and were rewarded with a stunning panorama.

A happy climber

A wild camp with water provided

The car park for the trail head was busy, and we met people on the path, but the island is far less crowded than the Lofotens, and doesn’t seem to be infested with tour buses offloading day-trippers to swarm over the most compelling views. Wild camping is easier, there are lots of places along the beach, like the lovely area behind a community centre where we were even able to fill up with water.

At first glance Senja seems even quieter, we have mainly shared the road with the same people who came across on the ferry with us. There are fewer than eight thousand people living on the island, and very few roads. The centre is made up of continuous ranks of mountains, like something out of the Lord of the Rings. Our first impression was that is was more green and lush than the other islands, more like Sardinia or Corsica. But apparently Senja is Norway in miniature, and will offer every type of landscape as we move forward. As the sun sinks tonight, we're pretty happy with the one we have.