OkÂ…Â…. so if I get the ferry from Hirtshals over to Norway ( Larvik or Kristiansand ) and want to take a scenic route up to the Lofoten area - but to include Sweden - what route would you recommend?
IÂ’ll be camping nearly every night and will have 5 weeks to get a good route in and back.
What time of year would you advise to avoid the worst of the mozzies and other tourists?
Here is my suggestion:
You ask for a scenic route that includes Sweden. It's a bit like asking for a virgin and then insisting on it to be Joan Collins....
Anyway, the Pink route is the Joan Collins, while the Yellow part is the more scenic part (the virgin).
I realize the request is for Larvik or Kristiansand going to Lofoten. The allotted time of 5 weeks.
The Pink route is 7 450 km, while the doing the yellow detour ads 300 km. This means riding 6-7 hrs each day will take 3 weeks of riding. The yellow detour will mean one more day of riding.
Lofoten is definitely the most scenic part of the ride, but I have taken the liberty to suggest the north-eastern part as an ad on as well. This is not as scenic in the sense that it will make an impressive postcard, but it will offer a different experience.
The route will for instance take the rider to drive along a small creek along the Russian border, and distance from the tiny road to the other (Russian) side is close enough for a young man to be ble to pee on Russia (But if you do, the fines are rather HEAVY. There are cameras mounted discretely that will catch most of the activity).
What this area will show is an introduction to how harsh mother nature may be to the terrain when it's hammered by more storms than you care to count during the winter. And it will make you feel like on top of the world, and yet realize how tiny we as human beings are against mother nature. It will also offer a taste of the Sami culture, where people had to adapt to these harsh condition and still survive in style as well as to fishing villages facing the Barents sea.
I would also suggest to include some none-driving days. There are lots of stuff to see. What about a king crab excursion
http://www.barentssafari.no/en/activities-summer/king-crab-safari/,
or whale watching
https://www.whalesafari.no/?lang=en.
If you are into war history, there are small museums that covers the demise of the German battleships Tirpitz and Scharnhorst, and learn the story about how the allies where able to send them to where they belonged. A story about great people where inferior equipment was compensated for by bravery and wisdom.
Anyway, there is so much more that may make the ride so much more than just a pretty view, if one is only open minded and willing to take the time to find it. But I'll stop here and rather fill in later if anyone is interested.
It is hard to find full details of the route by looking at the picture, but I am happy to submit the GPX file for both the Yellow route and the Pink route. That way it is possible to pick the part that triggers the interest and omit the less interesting parts. Since I can not receive PM, publish an email address here for a little while, where @ is replaced by one or more X'es as X scattered inside will make the address fly under the radar for the search robots.
June may be too cold for fun (and camping), July is the busy month. But if 5 weeks are wanted, end of August will also start getting cool for camping. So even if busy, starting the first or second week of July will be a good compromise. Of course, this may be stretched at both ends, it's merely a case of bringing warmer gear
I'll just end this post by mentioning that the route starts in Larvik and ends in Kristiansand. No point in returning to Larvik, as it will merely cover an area of little interest. Both places offers ferry to Hirtshals.