Ski and Paddle Norway 2009

Distance 41km | Time 9.5hrs | Ascent 0m | Descent 0m

What a difference a day makes. This morning I could hardly hear the sea when I woke and looking through the small gap in the harbour wall I could see the waves were small. I packed up the tent, dragged the kayak through the grass to the water’s edge, loaded it and set off at 0900.

It was a different world outside the harbour from yesterday. The gentle waves were barely a metre and none were breaking in the virtually still air. I made good time across the bay towards the lighthouse. The lighthouse itself was situated on a spit off the south west corner of the peninsula. This spit was moraine landscape again with small boulders and some truly massive boulders which the sea could barely move in the worst storms.

I paddled round the spit and then started heading east past the lighthouse and on to the town of Vestbygda. It was sheltering behind some massive outer breakwaters. In this main sanctuary there were also some inner breakwaters which was probably the original harbour from long ago.

After Vestbygda there was a glorious section of coast with many large beaches of white sand and above the sand dunes green coastal grasses before the farms started. I paddled out past a peninsula of rock outcrops and sand and reached an island called Rauna.

Rauna was full of birds and was a sanctuary with access forbidden during the nesting season. There were many geese on the island and every type of gull also seemed to be here. Skuas easily robbed the juvenile gulls of the fish they were learning to catch. It was a fascinating place ornithologically. However there was a recent storm 3 weeks ago and this had caused huge piles of rotting kelp. The place smelt foul. There were lots of insects in these rotting piles and many sandpiper type birds were feasting on them.

After a pause here I continued west along the coast with its frequent beaches until I reached Loshhamn. I cut inside a couple of islets and then headed over the bay to the southern tip of Langoy island. En route I passed the lighthouse of Sondre Katland. This sat on a skerry and the lighthouse was a tower off the keeper’s accommodation. It was an important lighthouse for the shipping route to the town of Farsund. It was automatic now but when it was manned the keepers took the vegetable soil in at the end of the summer to stop it getting washed away in the storms.

From Langoy to Kjopsoy near Korshamn there was an increasing wind against me. It started at a good two and was a good force four when I reached Gronsfjord. This stretch of some 7-8 km was interspersed with a few islands so there was plenty of interest as I slogged through the waves. Sometimes they were small and other times the swell from the north sea came through and they were much larger.

At Kjopsoy there was an old community of fishing houses which were now cabins. From here it was just 5 km across Gronsfjord to Lindesnes. I set my sights on the red (possibly granite) outcrops at the end of the Lindesnes peninsula and started paddling. I could not see the lighthouse until I was quite close. By now the wind was a force 5 and the sea state was getting quite choppy especially with the clapotis of rebounding swell.

There might have been a current against me as I slowly pulled and bounced my way through the rough sea. There were many tourists at the lighthouse looking at me and pointing. Just after the lighthouse was an inlet and I paddled into it and found somewhere to land by the boatshed.

I went up to the keeper’s cottage. This was the only lighthouse in Norway with a keeper still. There is a long tradition of all those who start or finish Norge Paa Langs on foot, ski, kayak or most commonly on bicycle to come here and sign the book. When I set off at new year there was no one around. The keeper welcomed me with a tea and the book and we had a chat before he had to go off and lock up.

I was a bit worried that I would get stuck in this inlet given the weather forecast with a force 6 easterly for the next two days but decided to chance it and stay here. I put up the tent in exactly in the same place as New Year. It was a bit easier to get the tent pegs in this time.

After that I went up to the lighthouse to have a look around. It was already 2030 by now. I tried to write but didn’t manage and after supper managed an early night. The tent was rattling in the wind as it was quite an exposed place.

It had been a good day. The paddling was good but the wind against me for the last 20 km made for slow progress especially the last 5 km which took well over an hour, probably nearer two in the rough sea. It was great to be back at Lindesnes after nearly 6000 km on ski and in the kayak. It would have been cause for a small celebration but I still had another 450-500 km to go to Oslo, via Stromstad, to complete the classic Norgeskyst.

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 23rd, 2009 at 2:16 pm 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.