The next morning in Svolvaer, the weather looked much better….at least not raining. At times, we could see the blue sky!

On our way back to the southern part of Lofoten, we stopped at Leknes for lunch at Makalaus. We got there when they first opened. I ordered the seafood pasta, it was good and tasted spicy, again, I think Norwegians like spicy food!

It has a piece of salmon and it was delicious!

After the lunch and toilet break, we continued our journey down south and enjoyed the beautiful scenery along the way.

Our first stop along the way was to Nusfjord, a picturesque fishing village. The road to Nusfjord was very beautiful from foliage to snowcapped mountain ranges.

This photo spot was clearly marked in Google Maps as “Road to Nusfjord view point”.

There were so many waterfalls!

There was a free parking lot with spaces for private cars and tour buses. The views across from the parking lot:

From the parking lot, it was only a few minutes’ walk to the village. On the side of the main road, you can see the beautiful red cabins of Nusfjord Village & Resort. Since it’s private property, they had signs and robes to warn tourists not to trespass.

And then it started to pour so we ran back to our car and left 🙁

Their bus stops were very cute, also red cabins:

We stopped at a few pullovers for photos of the landscape with mountains and beaches.

That little red cabin across from the lake:

How about a yellow cabin?

We finally made it back to Hamnøy again! After seeing the villages in the northern part of Lofoten up to Svinøya, I think the villages between Hamnøy and Reine are the most beautiful so we made the right choice to come back to try our luck.

Our cabin looked the same but not the waterfront, the view was our neighbor’s cabin but that was okay for one night! We had dinner again at Gadus and ordered the same seafood spaghetti.

We patiently waited for the sky to get dark…this was the blue hour:

But the clouds rolled in and sprinkled here and there. We waited and waited and suddenly we heard a Chinese scream “Northern Lights”! I got dressed quickly, grabbed the tripod and camera, and ran out to the back of the deck of the hotel. I vaguely can see “white clouds” but I wasn’t sure if those were clouds or the Northern Lights. I set my tripod, took a long exposure (20 s) photo, and confirmed it was the Northern Lights!!! I ran back and said to Jason, let’s go hunt!!!

We walked all the way to the bridge hoping for the iconic photo with the Northern Lights but the clouds were there most of the time! Also, the light spills from the lamp posts on the bridge were so bad, I tried using the umbrella to block the lights. There were 3-4 photographers there, they come and go, and at max was like 6, less than I expected.

Then, a bright line of Northern Lights appeared right on top of us. We looked up and WOW!!! This was the first time I saw red/pink Northern Lights!

It moved a little left, closer to the hotel:

I was hoping for it to make its way to the cabins but it was too high up so I took a portrait photo:

This was as close as it got and then faded out.

We decided to move on so we grabbed our car and continued our way heading toward Reine direction. As soon as we passed the bright-lit bridge, it got darker and we could see the Northern Lights with our naked eyes. Another bright string appeared so we parked at the pullover and took photos, it was amazing!

This was what we saw on the road, the Northern Lights were dancing!

We sat on the guardrail and enjoyed the spectacular show!

The sky was lit up by the Northern Lights!

Next stop, Reine, Jason watched the car while I walked back to the bridge with my tripod. I was surprised that I was the only photographer there!!! Lots of clouds but I could tell from the photo that the Northern Lights were there all over the sky.

Jason and I decided to drive to the road to Nusjford hoping to get the mountain ranges as the backdrop. It was only a 30ish minutes drive so not too far. The road was super dark, ideal for night photos and we saw 3 photographers along the main road. We pulled over at a spot and setup the tripod and took photos. The Northern Lights here weren’t as bright but the bonus was the Milky Way!!!

Back to the main road, the Northern Lights here were much brighter and woah the pink auroras again!

I aimed the camera up to capture more of the Milky Way in between the Northern Lights:

The other end of the Milky Way and the auroras:

We moved onto the next spot, the Northern Lights were over our heads!!!

At another pullover spot, the Northern Lights were so colorful, not just green!!!

Layers and layers of dancing lights!

The cabin was lit up by a car passing by so it was light painted in this photo:

We even made a stop at Ramberg Beach but it has big clouds there.

We couldn’t believe that by the time we made it back to Hamnøy, it was almost 4 AM! We hunted the Northern Lights for 6+ hours!!!! We had one last look on the bridge and it was still very cloudy 🙁

In between the cabins, the Northern Lights were faintly there.

It was an unbelievable night of hunting the Northern Lights, we made many stops to have different backdrops and for the 6+ hours, we continuously saw the Northern Lights. I didn’t know what KP index it reached up to but it was an amazing show! Thanks to the solar storm from the sun, it really made my Norway trip complete! We checked off the Reinebringen Hike and the Northern Lights yay!