Tuesday 15 October 

Not it a great start to the day, after eating breakfast I thought I would grab a couple of tea bags for our room, as they only had two single coffee pods in there. There was no starter milk and one little jar of sugar and salt and pepper shaker. The manager who brought her dog into work to wander around the restaurant, looked up from her table and said, “madam this is not a supermaket’.  I was shocked at the meanness and rudeness of her. 

I replied that I was just taking the couple of bags to the room as there was none there. She responded no, it is not available. This was following another guest helping themselves to a thermos of coffee…. I think it is a weird set up where they claim this exclusive accommodation, yet it is like a B&B and you are charged cleaning fees etc.  At nearly 400nzd per night, you would think some more basics like tea bags would be included?

Ah well, you live and learn and we have the power of reviews and reporting the dog to the Food safety people.  We shook off the negativity and tried to muster feeling positive in the face of more oppressive rain and clouds. Light intensity and hours are not the same as southern hemisphere and we are both getting over the dullness and damp. We can accept not seeing the lights again due to cloud cover, however, would like to see the scenery illuminated by some decent sun light to enjoy the blue and turquoise colours of the water.

Our son rung for a video chat and the sun appeared briefly so we went out late morning for a drive a bit north, on the west side of the islands to see the popular beaches Uttakleiv and Haukland.  The weather of course changed again, however I managed to see the lovely water at Huakland before it packed up. The photos show the intensity of the rain coming! 

We drove through a tunnel to Uttakliev, however did not feel it was worth paying a parking fee to access the beach given it was grey and drizzly.  The beaches are nice, however not uniquely special or as wow factor as I anticipated.

I was thankful to see the lovely colours under sunlight for a few minutes, however we couldn’t help but wonder how useable they would be? Even in summer the water temperature must be barely in double digits and not conducive to swimming unless you are a penguin? We are pretty spoilt in the Asia – Pacific region I think.

On the way home we stopped in Leknes to buy supplies for dinner; Reindeer slices and fresh cod. I also had some fresh pre-prepared fish soup from the night before shopping that I added the pan fried crispy skin cod to. I cooked the Reindeer similar to the lamb, and it was the star of the night. The fresh cod was really disappointing to the point of awful, so it got fed to the wildlife outside. It was soft, almost muddy, bland and a weird taste that was not clean and ocean like.