Saturday 17 September 2022--Gray day...I counted up days this morning and realized I'm just past halfway through my trip, eighteen nights down and seventeen to go. Slump day. There usually comes a point in a long trip when I'm tired, the weather isn't so hot, nothing much impresses me, and if you told me I could skip the rest of the trip by tapping my ruby slippers together and saying "There's no place like home," I'd give it some thought.

Get myself together and drive down to Borg to visit the Lofotr Viking Museum. It had long been believed that Borg was the base of a Viking-era chieftainship. The site of the largest known Norse longhouse was found in 1983, and subsequently excavated. A replica was built alongside, and a museum just down the hill. The museum contains a trove of artifacts found on the site, and there's a series of videos explaining various themes and providing context. A theater shows a film dramatizing the story of the last chieftain here, who apparently felt that the ongoing consolidation of the various minor kingdoms into a unified Norway in the tenth century infringed on his freedom to exploit his serfs, or something. He sold the farm and left for Iceland. The film has a happy ending-- his daughter, who as a pre-teen made goo-goo eyes at the son of the man who bought the farm, moves back to Norway as a young adult, marries the lad, and becomes lady of the farm she grew up on. It's unclear whether this is an event documented in the sagas, or is a complete fiction. I suppose it could be both.

I take a walk through the longhouse, but don't linger--there's a tour group in there, getting a presentation in a language other than English. There are events held here in season, Viking feasts and such. There are also activities down at the lakefront centering around a replica of the Oseberg ship, which is on display in a museum in Oslo. A tapestry on display in the longhouse was inspired by fragments found with the ship.

I leave the museum and go off in search of a couple of beaches. The pair of Vik and Hauklandstranda make up a relatively long stretch--most of Lofoten's beaches are no more than pockets at the heads of fjords. I might linger longer, and take more photos, on a sunny day. From there, a kilometer-long tunnel leads to Uttakleiv. As in the Faroe Islands, the economic sense of boring such tunnels to very small farming villages is an interesting question, one I don't really need to answer, I guess. The track over the mountain is definitely not a viable route for motor vehicles. I'm surprised and annoyed to find a booth in front of Uttakleiv Strand where I'm expected to pay for the privilege of parking. I don't even ask how much...I'm not in the mood for that crap. I turn around and leave.

I stop in Leknes, which is not a very charming town, but is a convenient service center, with a large grocery where I can stock up on beer. On the way back to Henningsvær, I pick up a hitchhiker, a Polish fellow who is on the way to Svolvær to catch the Hurtigruten north. Think briefly about taking him all the way there, but that would add an hour to my trip. He's happy enough to be let off at the turnoff. Don't feel like cooking tonight, so I have fish and chips at the restaurant downstairs. (I'll double up on the chicken breasts tomorrow.) It's okay, but probably not the best in the world. The weather forecast for tomorrow isn't very good...I think I'll take the day off.