Day 8

Harstad to Moskines on Lofoten

222 miles

Well this was a less than brilliant day. Low cloud with intermittent rain all day meant that I got glimpses of how beautiful the lofoten islands are, but not many! It's apparently one of the most beautiful places in Norway so it was quite frustrating.
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My nav took me on a random detour, after a short distance I decided that this wasn't the right road and found a spot to turn the bike round.  
As I was doing the U turn I stalled the bike and dropped it at 0 mph! I kind of casually stepped off as it fell over and was left standing over it totally unhurt.  

As the road was quiet I attempted to do the back to the bike and lift with your legs thing, that may work on smaller bikes but mine with luggage weighs about the same as a small moon. 
All I managed to do was strain myself and make my knees squeak.  As I started to take off the top box and seat bag a camper van and BMW bike turned up, the guy on the bike quickly helped me lift the triumph and stayed long enough for me to see that it would still run. 

 Damage was minimal, the crash bars and left pannier took the hit and you couldn't see the damage if I didn't point it out. I was more embarrassed than anything else.  

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I continued to head to the south of the island and noticed there were a lot of people camping in laybys. Didn't really think anything about it until I'd spent two hours trying to find somewhere to stay! Even the campsites were full and there isn't much flat ground anywhere to wild camp.  I was also running low on fuel as I'd expected to fill up in Bodo after getting the ferry to the mainland. 

The petrol station on the nav turned out to not be there.  I worked my way further north and eventually got a room in a hostel type place, cheap and a bit rough but dry! 
It reminded me of the sort of places I used to stay in when I was working as a contactor in Holland, just with less stoned scousers.

There was also an unmanned petrol station in the same small town and I got 19l into the 20l tank. As it was still wet I didn't realise the puddle beside the fuel pumps was diesel until I stopped at the next junction and just about fell over again as the sole of my boot was coated in the stuff.

I'd been messaging Tommy that I met in the Arctic circle place in Finland so he rode down and got the last room.  It was his birthday the next day so we had a few drinks to celebrate while we planned the next days ride.