Distance: 54.01 miles

Time: 5:45

Elevation Gain: 2,590 feet

Moskenes campsite looked like a veritable gold mine, and as I sat on the terrace at just gone 10 o’clock, sipping an £8.71 half litre of Nordland Pils, and watched another raft of potential clientele rushing up the hill from the ferry, it seemed like business was booming.

In the morning, I’d just been to the kitchen to clean my pans when I overheard a group of 4 men readying their bikes to leave. They sounded Scottish, and what’s more, one of them was also riding a British racing green Thorn bicycle, what were the chances?

Going over to say hello, I ascertained that they were from Glasgow, they’d been in Moskenes long enough to do some kayaking and a midnight sun hike, they were now setting off to Tromso by bike, and were flying back to Scotland a week on Monday. So the day after me.

Most of the site had emptied again by the time I left, and that seemed like no bad thing, as I was happy to share the road with as few campervans as possible. I felt like I might be looking to stop quite often.

On leaving the campsite, the views came quickly and often, and as I rounded a corner a cliff towered above me, and as I stopped to take a photo, I noticed a sinuous and almost completely unbroken line of people zig-zagging up the steep flank to the pinnacle of what must have been an incredible viewpoint, looking out over the fjord and the sea and the tiny village of Reine jutting out between the two.

Stopping at a viewpoint, near Reine, I was readying to take a photo when I was taken aback by a ‘hello Michael’ from behind me. It was Simon, and Margot, who I had shared the Atlantic tunnel bus to Kristiansund with a week ago. When I had last seen them, as they left the town, we commented that we might see each other in the Lofoten Islands – as I was skipping ahead to cycle to Bodø, and they were continuing to Trondheim, but then taking the train to Bodø – well that was quick!

It turned out that they had only just arrived off the ferry, at 10 o’clock the night before, quickly pitching their tent and nipping up Reinebringen – the midnight sun hike – on the trail I’d just seen from the road. They’d got the sunset shots alright, with a cloud inversion, it looked incredible.

They recommended that I should take a look around Reine, so I rolled down the hill, stopping off at a rather souped up version of the Extra supermarket with a fast food counter and cafe area.

Quickly polishing off Norway’s unofficial national dish, the humble hotdog, I carried on around, and across, Reinefjorden, with an incredible, majestic backdrop of towering peaks, cobalt blue waters, all punctuated by tiny red and white stilted homes, the colours of the Norwegian flag found everywhere I looked.

After an incredible series of open tunnels, I found a few scattered people on a clifftop staring out to sea. Slowing up to take a look, I caught sight of what they were watching, the black fin of an Orca circling out in the open waters.

The E10 cut a swathe across the island, all the way to Ramberg in the north, where I found the four Scots returning from a side road where they had deviated to climb a hill.

Almost as soon as I hit the north coast, the road turned south again around a large fjord, I felt fantastic, I was flying along and my legs felt great. But then I remembered, if you feel great on the bike, there’s only ever one explanation, there’s a tailwind, and that’s exactly what I found as battled along the other side of the fjord.

Reaching a gap between two islands, I saw the Nappstraumtunnelen plummet into the ground, promising 1.8 km of underwater fun. Luckily there was a raised walkway for pedestrians and bikes, but it was still a damp inhospitable place to be, and that was before the climb back out.

Reaching Leknes, I was intrigued to find that the local Remo 1000 supermarket had a separate Sunday opening entrance and that you weren’t allowed into a large part of the shop. Even more interestingly though, although customers weren’t allowed into most of the shop, it did seem that they had shop assistants who would go and find things for you from the unopened section.

Leaving town on the 815, there was a serious hill right out of the traps, but I was feeling comfortable on the climb, and then amused, on seeing a ‘cross country skiiers crossing’ sign.

I spoke to a couple of cyclists from Oslo at a bus stop, I was interested to hear that they were pushing on south to do the tunnel tonight, hoping that it would be quieter than waiting for morning.

I pressed on into the depths of Rolvsfjorden, and on passing Brustranda Fjordcamping at a 20 past 9, I called it a night.

You can probably see too many great views in one day, so I was ending the day with just one more at the campsite.