Ski and Paddle Norway 2009

Distance 29km | Time 7hrs | Ascent 0m | Descent 0m

I was up at 0730 and after breakfast wandered around the campsite taking a few photos and packing the boat at the low tide. A few people came by and chatted as they walked out to the point. My plan today was to go over to Torghatten where I had been tipped on a good campsite right to the south of the unique mountain. It was not far and I hope to arrive early.

I eventually started paddling on the mirror calm water at 0930. I wore no shirt and just had a life jacket on top. It was still too warm. It was the type of day where I could spot puffins from at least half a km away. Indeed in these still conditions I managed to see porpoises on at least three occasions. They were all individuals rather than a group.

I paddled across the south side of Vega heading away to the south west all the time towards a cluster of islands called Dypingan, which lay about 5 km of the south east of Vega. When I reached them I landed for lunch. I noticed there were a lot of Tystie around.

This collection of islands were composed of some 10 low rounded small islets composed of sharp ridged rock with some arid type of vegetation on them. The place was covered in goose droppings who must have feasted on the grass before migrating further north. Due to the dry weather a lot of the grass was browning but the sedum was in flower covering large areas in bright yellow.

There were many seagull chicks on the island. Their parents watched from a good distance as I wandered about. These seagull chicks, although only a week or two old, were already quite streetwise and either stayed still, hoping camouflage would work and them when I got too close and they realized they were spotted they dashed for the taller vegetation of nettle and angelica.

After a good pause and explore on these remote islets I paddled across the open Vegafjord to the archipelago of Buroy near the mainland. It was a 10 km crossing and went quite quickly but the wind was getting up a bit and I had to put the jacket on.

I paddled through the islands of Buroy and then reached the south west tip of the larger island of Torget. There was a narrow, almost hidden entrance between the island of Torget and the smaller island of Helloy off its south west tip. These two islands enclosed a bay with many sandy beaches within it. At the far end of this bay was another narrow opening but this one was so shallow it allowed tractors to cross the sand at low tide to reach Helloy and the few cabins and farms on it.

As I paddled over this sandy ford and then through the narrows Torghatten appeared. Tom had told me there was some nice campspots to the south of the hill so I headed over the next bay towards them. This crossing of 2 km was all in shallow sandy waters with much weed and the occasional rock. I found one good place to camp below a small footbridge over an inlet. It was directly south of a lovely farm and the mountain.

The farm I found out was some 160 years old. It was owned by great grandparents who had seven children. These seven had 25 offspring and they now jointly owned and maintained the farm getting together once a year to tackle some larger projects and revel in the surroundings under the mountain.

There was a path from this lovely farm up to the mountain. What was remarkable about this mountain was it had a hole through it. The mountain was some 260 metres high and the hole was about half way up. I climbed up a path on the south side through birch woods thick with flowers and wild roses, the usual pink but a lot of white also, to the entrance of the hole.

The hole was vast. It was about 20 metres across and at least 40 high. It went right through the mountain for about 300 metres. This hole must have been formed by waves when the land was lower and the weight of the ice depressed the land. When the ice melted the land slowly started to rise and this hole, once formed would have risen above the sea level.

There was a great view southwards to the quaint farm the inlet and then the typical Helgelandskyst seascape of islands and Islets. I walked through the hole to the north side where there was a great view to the town of Bronnoysund some 15 km to the north and more seascapes of islands.

After a few phone calls I returned to the tent and got there around 2100. I was quite sun burnt from the bare topped paddling today and after supper crashed out at 2200 instead of doing any writing. The writing was taking up far too much of my time anyway and on average costing me about 10 km a day in lost distance. On the other hand it was forcing me to rest. It was nice to get an early night and the ground was soft.

It had been another magnificent day from start to finish. The weather, the scenery and the birdlife was fantastic.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 13th, 2009 at 11:06 am and is filed under Update. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.