Scandinavian Traveller: Likki the Trimmed Beaver - Chapter One

Montréal, March 18, 2015

During my last visit at a client, one of them had baked a Norwegian cake and gave me a little stuff beaver because of an inside joke we had going, as a farewell for our Scandinavian Adventure. 

I liked it a lot, and was truly touched by the gesture.  I had decided to make it my mascot for this Scandinavian adventure of ours.  I thought I could bring it along and take pictures of different Norwegian things.  Thing is it's not small, and despite its good looks, I've felt kind of shy or embarrassed to pull it out of my carry-on to take pictures at airports, etc. (yeah, I know, who would have thought; me shy!  But I was!)  So, it stayed in my luggage until we got here.

Bodø, March 29, 2015

I took a few shots of it through our little flat, in Bodø, like this one of it on the windowsill in the living room.  I've taken a shot of it with a bunch of postcards I had bought, and got a few comments from Postcrossing members about how cute it was, so I thought I should be using it more.

Yesterday during our walk, since it was a (rare) sunny day in Bodø, I thought of bringing it along but decided against it, since the weather changes quickly here and I didn't really know where we were heading I didn't bring it.  Today, being yet another rainy day in Bodø we decided to go explore some more, but this time by car.  

Likki, as we're leaving Bodø

Doesn't it look comfortable and ready for a road trip?  I  just love how you can see its' tail reflection in the windshield.  We left Bodø's center of town and headed East towards the University of Nordland.  It's not it town as such, but about twenty to thirty minutes out.  The area around it has grocery stores, drugstore, pizzeria, you know the typical things for students...

University of Nordland

We kept driving, since there wasn't much around there.  We headed towards Saltstraumen.  We had to go through tolls and two long tunnels.  The navigation system in our rental car (a Mazda 3) is pretty neat, at least I think so, it showed the speed limits, and was quite accurate and also showed the tunnels - the display changed and I thought it was cool, check it out:

Navigation system in tunnel

Coming out of the tunnels, which were fairly close together  (Editorial comment:  it was weird driving through a tunnel and not feeling like some part might fall on us, really felt like we were in a foreign country.) and really through rocks, with gorgeous snow covered mountains as background.  I will say this, the scenery in Norway is quite nice, between the mountains, the fjord, and the grey skies, because since we've been here we've seen blue skies only a few times so far...

Scenic view post tunnel

View along the road, where the rocks had funky striations

Likki posing

Bridge leading to Straumøya

There were two bridges (as well), long ones too, which led to a little more rural and remote area.  There were some fishing camps at the bottom, and when I got out of the car to take a few pictures, the smell of fish was quite present, to say the least.

View from the other side of the bridge

There we also saw an actual beach, more than just a shore line, and it looked like actual sand.  I do know there are a few white sand beaches in the area, so seeing that little one was pretty.

Little beach by a cow field

We kept driving down that very narrow road, where we couldn't really meet another car, one of us had to pull aside to let the other go by.  We (read Hubby who was doing the driving) were looking for Bodø from the other side, since so far we've seen this coast in the distance, so we wanted to see Bodø the same way, in the distance...  We couldn't find a road that would really lead us to the coast line as such, we were following the coast. 

Bodø in the distance

There was this little dirt road which looked like it was leading towards the water, so I told Hubby to go that way.  He was hesitant, afraid that some Norwegian farmer would come running out with a shot gun or something (yeah, he watches a lot of TV) plus the road was full of holes and we could get stuck if not careful. He's quite wary when he drives, but we found what he wanted to see.  The picture doesn't show much (it was taken with my cell phone after all), but we could see the Scandic Hotel and the Control Tower of the airport. 

We then decided to head back to Bodø Sentrum, and along the way passed not one but four moose.  I guess the postcards I've seen (and sent) were not only for the tourists benefits but because those big beasts are quite common.

Hubby had never seen a live one before, only steak in his plate at my mom's - which he truly enjoys either as steak or as fondue meat, which is always a treat - I was excited to see not one but four of them simply grazing in the woods.  We both agreed that it must be hard to spot them, an this despite their size, from a tower and in the forest.  They have a great natural camouflage.

I was also happy we got to see them only, and not hit them as we could have done given they were standing by the road.

One of the four...

We did manage to get back, rather quickly, and without any sightings of anything else, big or small.  For having been out and about for a few hours I need to eat a little something, so we went to the cafe below our flat.  They have a daily soup buffet, homemade,  which is rather good, so I enjoyed a nice soup and cappuccino and a cold one for the husband.

Post Road Trip @ Kafta Cafe

Wouldn't you say it was a nice way to close this first adventure of Likki the Trimmed Beaver in Norway?