Land's End
Sogndalstrand – 4th June
Unfortunately we had to leave our roomy, comfortable apartment with the triple glazing and outside patio/conservatory, I’m sure the owner was preparing for a pandemic with her 46 rolls of toilet paper, 4 bottles each of dish washing liquid, window cleaner, body wash plus shampoo, 5 containers of laundry detergent and as for the cleaning cloths, there were too many to count.
Today we took the coast road from Kristiansand to Sogndalstrand, which translates weather wise from the summery south-easterly to the wet south-westerly. The photo above may look like a grey afternoon, but it was actually taken at 10.00pm, the nights are so much longer that not even the rain can darken the skies. Unfortunately the weather forecast for the next 10 days of our holiday predicts rain every day; we knew before we left home that the west coast of Norway is wet. One of us is quite excited he can get some use out of his new thermals and I can wear my Crusader beanie without shame. [Ed – Tui ad goes here]
Our first stop today was Mandal a By, its neither a city or a town, in other words its non-binary or population density neutral. For us it has a hill to climb to do a geocache at the observation point where the locals have kept an eye on the invading Russians and Germans over the last two centuries. The rock has many tunnels and bunkers from the war days that have now been turned into car parks.
Boat houses on an un-named island near Kjerringheia (south coast)- from the road they look like houses, but from the harbour side they are boat garages. Houses don’t come in many colours in Norway; it must be so easy going to Resene to choose paint…
Next stop was Lindesnes Lighthouse at the southernmost tip of Norway. It is windy and a very popular spot for motor homes to park up for the night, sheltered behind the rocks. You have to pay NZ$18 to climb the rocks to the current manned lighthouse, the old coal-fire powered lighthouse and surrounding battlements. Seniors pay 50% of the adult price; they walk on the same steps, use the toilets and pause for longer, so I’m not sure why they are cheaper, maybe they hope they can’t climb to the top. We had our lunch here, in peace, as there are few seagulls brave enough to tackle the winds.
This photo is of a Norwegian geocacher taking a piss when he set his geocache up; the hint was “under a rock”.
[ED – I will re-write this particular passage]
…This is a picture of a big rock delicately balanced on another big rock with an intrepid geocacher’s assistant from Enner Glynn modelling a geocacher searching for the cache.
The geocacher that set this cache up (the owner) was taking the piss when the hint he gave those seeking said cache, was “under a rock”.
The next stop was Flekkefjord at a cache in an old Red Cross bunker in the hill. Not much to see there, so we moved on to our next accommodation via the coastal road. The time difference from that route and the inland route is four minutes, the experience way different. The skinny coastal road hugs the rock walls of the fjords and weaves in and out of them, up and down hill, through tunnels and over bridges. You do this for an hour and then pop out at the end of a fjord and there is 8 houses, and a large port building with a bulk-ore carrier (ship). Roger’s inquisitive research found out it was loading straight from a mine (via conveyor belt) a special rock that is processed to make Titanium Dioxide which is used as a pigment in the making of white paint.
Our last stop was our accommodation for the next two nights in Sogndalstrand. The village is so small we had to do a quick grocery shop at Hauge before arriving. Seven and half hours on the road, including stops, it had just begun to rain, so we were keen to get inside and relax. But like all new places we have to work out the basics and in this house it was where do they hide the light switches? Luckily for us it is still light late at night.
This photo below is our view at 11.00pm as a cargo boat went passed.
