Fish, Fish and more Fish

It was dry this morning when we woke up, the carpark was pretty full and there had been some comings and goings through the night with new arrivals off the late ferries and others leaving to get on the ferry. I never heard any of it but that was Joyces morning report. After breakfast we put on out waterproof jackets and went out for a wander and to try and get a wee museum visit in. We visited the souvenir shop and sent some postcards. Then the rain came on, and quite heavy too. We went to have a look around the Torskfiske museum but it didn't open til 11 o'clock, so wandered around and went for a coffee at the Brygga restaurant, myself and Logan had looked in yesterday and it looked lovely.  It was a welcome shelter from the rain, but I am always wary in these tourist hotspots as to how good the fare will be. We need not have worried, our coffees and waffles were superb, the waffles were made to order and we were given a huge bowl of superb strawberry jam and another of cream that were both bigger than my Daddy bear breakfast bowl, and we were just to help ourselves. It's a large place and the lady serving told us 500 people had been in yesterday at lunchtime alone.

It was now after 11 and we headed round to the Torskfiske museum and it was open, a very officious gentleman was giving some people a row for going in the wrong door, but to be fair it wasn't exactly clear where to go in, and what to do once in the door. He took our NOK's and recognised our Scottish accents and had wee blether with us, no rows for us fortunately. The Lofoten Islands were made on fish and we wanted to know a little more about the processes involved of the fish catching and drying and this was a good choice of place to visit. The elderly man running the place was a fisher himself, or perhaps an ex fisher and was happy to field a few questions even though it was a self guided museum with information leaflets. 

So, basically (and some of this might not be 100% correct) the Torsk (cod) travel from the Barents Sea to spawn in the winter months around Lofoten, they are caught either in nets or on long lines in January to March mostly. They are brought ashore and gutted, the liver is kept for manufacturing cod liver oil, the roe is collected and made into what Norwegians call caviar, the heads are removed and hung up on racks to dry, and the body's are also hung to dry providing the fish are below 6kg in weight, anything bigger is split and dried using salt. The Lofoten Islands have special weather conditions that allow this drying process to work, the winter temperatures hover around 0'c and they have very low levels of humidity. The wind, sun later in spring and a little rain in between are perfect for drying the fish. We are well into June now and there are still huge racks of Torsk drying all over the islands. The most ingenious part of the process is the fact that the fish shrinks to about 23% of its original weight, and once dried they are graded into batches, the sorter is the most important man in the firm. The prime fish are mostly sent to Italy, the leanest fish mostly sent to the North, southern Italy prefer's the meatier fish-this differs due to the different ways the fish is rehydrated and then cooked. Portugal and other countries are also big importers. The heads are mostly destined for African countries and particularly Nigeria, this all started during the reign of the British empire, Britain needed Palm oil but the Nigerians were poor and had a poor diet meaning they were not too strong, so the dried cods heads were and still are sent there where they are boiled together with ground fruits and peppers adding much needed proteins to their diet making them stronger. Apparently the heads are actually eaten, though I have no idea how you eat a bony cods head.........anyway, it was all very interesting and is to this day the mainstay of the Lofotener's livelihood. It is slightly gruesome seeing all the dried heads and body's about the place but its the norm here, and Logan in particular has no qualms about getting hold of a big head and trying to match its toothy grin. 

After all this fish education, it seemed the right thing to do to go back to the restaurant and try some of their fishy offerings for ourselves. So, back we went and we had our buffet lunch there, there was fish soup, and 3 cod dishes including Bacalao which was delicious. the meat seems to take on a much meatier texture having been dried, compared to freshly caught fish. There were superb shrimps also which Logan loved, there's nothing he won't try. Callum is much harder work and refused point blank to eat the soup, and struggles with fish unless its "cooked normally" in batter, lol. 

We headed back to the van and soon got on the road, I feel better now for not having paid to stay the night, we have put some money into the souvenir shop, a museum and a restaurant, we can hold our heads a little higher. We left A (with an wee o above it) and headed along the E10 road, it was busy with vans, buses and cars but not too bad. I think the high season would be brutal. It a superb bit of coastline with little villages spread along between the sea and the mountains, twisting and turning and revealing something new after each turn, it would be a fantastic cycle ride at maybe a slightly quieter time of year. The mountains are impressive. we stopped to watch a helicopter ferrying rocks up to a mountain path that is being rebuilt, the boys enjoyed watching this. 

We can't stop at everything as usual but did take as little detour to a small fishing village called Nusfjord. It was very quaint and the whole village is actually a museum, most of the building's were being locked up as we arrived too near 5pm but that was fine, we were fished out for the day anyway. We wandered around and had an ice cream (well apart from Callum-his behaviour was not worthy of such holiday treats today) and then headed north to find somewhere to park for the night-preferably free. Dag had marked a few places on my road atlas which would be good for seeing the midnight sun so we are parked near Myrland on the island of Flakstadoya the 2nd island of the main Lofoten chain after Moskenesoya further south. There is no midnight sun, its is overcast and a bit drizzly, not too bad and no wind. Hopefully over the next couple of days things will improve an we can all sit up and watch the sun not set. We did have a flyby by a passing large raptor, a golden eagle, however by the time I got the correct lens on the camera only a rear end photo could be obtained, better planning required the next time!!