Camping in the wild

What to do after having gone already too far and the sun is nearing the horizon. The only local motel charged a rip-off price and the next camping was six hours cycling further. Well, you can do only one thing: go on and try to find a nice spot for camping in the free nature. The problem then becomes that all possible spots next to the public road are already taken by weekend cottages.

So we went on and on and on and on. One spot looked OK, an old and deserted camping. A bit too full of sheep (and their droppings) and a bit near to the road. The latter is not so bad for the noise, but more for your feeling of safety. Too many lonely guys cruising around with nothing on their hands on a Saturday evening. And when then even the local traffic signs are smudged with swastika graffiti, you become double careful.

With the kilometers ticking away and our mood going down with the minute, we got more and more desperate. They only good news is then that the sun refuses to go down. When finally everything was as bad as it can get, we suddenly found the most perfect camping spot: soft ground, no sheep, near to the lake, hundred meter from the road, out of sight, etc. etc.

camping wild between Harstad and Straumen

And suddenly every piece falls in its place. It was already late, but no possibility to take a shower saves time. So after pitching the tent it is immediately time for a beer. Followed by a nice pasta with pesto meal and nothing can go wrong anymore.

From which we learned that by nature we are probably not the type of people for camping "in the wild". However, when it works out well as in this case, you can have a better camping experience than any official camping can give you. How too combine the best of both: I don't know ...

fjord at Straumen campsite