Lofoten Islands Expedition 2019
“The Famous Five visit Lofoten” by Enid Blyton
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Anne |
Dick | George | Timmy |
Julian |
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| Andy Garland | Karl Winrow | Catriona Hare |  |
Roger Coleman |
Day 00 – The Journey Out (8th August) by Julian “The Famous Five find their way to Lofoten”
Anne had been to Norway before back in 2015 and although a little grumpy on that trip she definitely wanted to return. Anne was very organised and put together a detailed plan of action for the summer holidays. We all immediately signed up to her plan and could not wait until school broke up later that summer. Anne kept sending out details of what to bring and where to be. Some of her notes were umpteen pages long! She even reminded us that we were all flying from the airport in Manchester, “the big one!”
As we left the UK; George, Anne and Julian all stocked up on lashings of ginger beer for the trip from the large shop at the airport. Here they met some friends, “Jo the gypsy girl” and young “Tinker Hayling”. They were going to the islands to walk and take photographs and hoped to meet up again with the famous five for the last few days of the trip.
Upon arriving at Bodo, the group waved goodbye to Jo (the gypsy girl) and Tinker Hayling. They had heard about the size of the airplane on this 3rd leg of the journey and instead ran away to catch the ferry to Moskenesoya which was due to leave the next day. Timmy was a little concerned as the tiny plane taxied to the end of the runway and whimpered a little as it took off and swung round to head towards the tiny landing strip at Svolaer. Anne tried hard to calm everyone 
with her “shortest ever runway” joke. It did not really work.
With a screeching of the brakes the tiny little plane pulled up to the terminal, a small building with grass on the roof but with the biggest toilet we had ever seen. We all collected our luggage from the trolley but “blimey”, Anne`s main bag with all her vital equipment was missing along with all the food for the trip. The airport did not have a clue where it could be but fortunately Anne was quick thinking and managed to scribble down a phone number to see if turned up in the morning. We would have to keep our fingers and toes crossed.
Having landed with most of our gear the five quickly loaded themselves into the taxi and headed to Sandvika Camping. This was to be our base for the adventure. This Sandvika was number 16 of the 27 Sandvika`s on Treasure Island (Ausvagoya) but luckily the taxi driver knew how to find it. We tried to check in but there was a problem, we were booked into a hostel back in Svolaer and were not due to arrive in our cabin until the next day. “Crikey” exclaimed George, what were we going to do? Fortunately, Anne had it all sorted in a less than 38 minutes, we even received an upgrade to towels and bed sheets. This was going to be the best summer ever 😊
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