Ski and Paddle Norway 2009

Distance 21km | Time 3.5hrs | Ascent 0m | Descent 0m

I did not manage all the writing and office work the previous evening so after breakfast at the hostel I carried on writing. By 1200 everything was up to date and all the emails done. I was clean shaved and had washed all my clothes. The only thing I still needed to do was shop and that could wait. I gave Tone a ring to see if she was around but she was on babysitting duty still until late in the evening. There was little point hanging around as the weather was good and the tide was about to ebb.

By the time I finished chatting with the friendly Swedish family in the hostel and packed everything it was 1330. I then carried everything to the hidden jetty by the Admiral Hotel where I left it. I left at 1430 but had to return to change paddles. My expensive Epic paddles needed glued. I had never been that impressed with the quality of them since I started using them a few months ago. Chinese rubbish masquerading as German quality.

As I left Bergen there was a mass of activity in the harbour. Many ships and boats were docking or setting off. Cruise ships were mooring on the outer wall and the Hurtigruten was returning after its 11 day round tour to Kirkenes. There were local sightseeing boats setting off and returning and cabins cruisers weaving through all this. I kept to the side to Nordnes point and then headed down the south side of Byfjord to the large bridge over the fjord to Askoy island.

The current was very much on my side and even with a slight head wind I was doing 7 km per hour. I was only when I got to the second large bridge at Knarrvika after nearly 2 hours paddling did I lose the current as the tide started to slow and then turn. By then I was in the wider Kobbaleia sound. I kept to the east side and paddled past suburbs which seemed to be getting more and more exclusive and leafy.

I decided to go the west side of the two islands of Bjoroyna and Tyssoy as the ships and express boats seemed to be going the other way. This seemed to be the best choice and it was quiet down this side. Here were many older hamlets with traditional wharfs and boat houses interspersed with newer villas. Mostly this side of the island had a rural feel to it. By the time I got to the south end of Tyssoy it was 1800. There was a slight wind against me and the current was also against me. I thought I would camp in a bay I identified on the map.

The bay was great. It had a small beach and some grass around this. It was owned by the council and run as a recreation area. It was largely deserted except for a couple of families who were swimming. I measured the water temperature. It was 19.9 degrees.

I put the tent up beside the only table so I could write and sorted myself out. By then everybody else had left except for a woman and a friend’s boy she was taking on an outdoor treat, and they were staying here for a few days in a large Lavu tent. I chatted with them for a good hour. I then thought I had to write. Just then the skies got a bit darker, and then wind stopped and out of the damp grass came millions of midges. This compared to some of the worst Scottish scenarios. Writing was out of the question. The woman, Ann Grete, leant me some repellant which made little difference.

The only solution was to go into the tent or make a fire. Ann Grete had already collected some green pine and there was a bit of damp drift wood in the seaweed. After persevering for a good half hour I eventually got a fire going. It kept the midges at bay.

We sat around the fire until 2300 when the boy and Ann Grete went to bed. I did not even consider writing and would postpone it until tomorrow. I crashed out well before midnight and slept well.

It had been an OK day. The morning was squandered by office work and then the afternoon was a good paddle with a great campspot. I had cut my stay in Bergen to a minimum as my friend was otherwise busy and I did not feel like wandering around Bergen as a tourist for a day. I was not ready to even have a taste of city yet and wanted to return to the skerries.

Distance 19km | Time 3.5hrs | Ascent 0m | Descent 0m

It was raining heavily when I woke. People in Bergen sometimes complain about the weather but it only has 3 metres of rain a year compared to 4 metres on the West of Scotland. By the time I got up at 0700 the rain had stopped. I was in the kayak at for 0830. I only had about 4 hours paddling to Bergen to pick up the spraydeck from Platou Sports before they closed for the weekend. It would be an easy journey down wider fjords to the city centre

The area I had been paddling through yesterday and today’s paddle to Bergen, and for a good 40 km south of Bergen was a geologically unique area. It was known as the Bergen Arcs. If you look at the map you will see the land curving round with Bergen at the centre. This was caused during the Caledonian collision some 400 million years ago when the tectonic plates of Baltica (Scandinavia) and Laurentia (Greenland and North America) collided.

In this violent collision huge mountains were created some 10000 metres high which have since been eroded down to their stumps. Huge chucks of rock were thrust up onto the gneiss platform of Baltica. In a few places Baltica was pressed under Laurentia, or subducted. The area around Bergen was one. It was pressed deep into the earth and parts of this chunk got bent as the centre snagged relative to the rest. Deep down in the earth’s crust this rock got baked and transformed into the Lindas nappe. Then this nappe was exhumed as the rocks above it slid off and were then eroded as the continents drifted apart again. Glacial erosion happened along the weaker lines of this Lindas nappe to carve out the channels I had paddled through yesterday and today.

As I approached Bergen it became more and more populated. Houses were perched on every buttress overlooking the fjord. Many of these house owners seemed to have an obsession to build a boat shed despite the difficult terrain. Therefore there were many buildings on waterside shelves at the foot of crags. Here there was an almost inaccessible shed and a winch to hoist small unkempt boats onto the damp concrete platforms. Access to these sheds was down precarious steps and even ladders bolted onto the cliff face.

The rain and sun swapped the whole time I paddled down the craggy sided Osterfjord past the residential suburbs of Salhus, Tertnes and Brevika until I approached the centre. I was still undecided what to do when I entered Bergen. In the end I paddled right into the central harbour in the middle of town and was lucky in finding a floating jetty where I could lift the boat onto in a reasonably secure place next to a major hotel. It was pouring rain now.

I then vaulted a fence and was in the middle of a large city. I felt a bit bewildered. I had not seen anything like this for over half a year. I was still in my wet kayaking cloths and faded jacket, totally unkempt and unshaved, pretty wet and smelling like a dead animal. Like this I wandered through a sophisticated city of well groomed beautiful people. Even at Platou Sports they gave me a second look. The spraydeck as predicted had not arrived although it had apparently cleared customs and was en route. It would have to be forwarded I thought.

Bergen as a city is very old at about 1000 years. It vied with Trondheim at the time to be the most important city on the coast of Norway, which at the time was a largely coastal country. Oslo was at the time was not that important. Bergen was built on cod, more specifically dried cod. It managed to establish a monopoly on the dried cod trade from northern Norway to mainland Europe. Mainland Europe was largely Catholic at the time and the whole population needed fish every Friday and a major source of this fish was dried cod from Norway.

Bergen also became an enclave of the powerful Hansa group based in Lubeck in Northern Germany. These Saxon merchants established a near monopolistic trading network across northern Europe and the Baltic region in the 13th Century and kept their position for a couple of hundred years. The Hansa merchants had their own enclave in the town and had the exclusive rights to trade cod with northern Norway. In return they traded flour from Europe.

Bergen remained stable throughout this time with a steady population but in 1702 nearly the entire city of tar covered wooden houses burnt down. Much of the present city was built after that, including the famous Brygge. Like all cities it expanded rapidly in the 19th century and today has a population of around 250,000.

It is situated in a pleasant setting beside fjords and among the 7 hills of Bergen. It was European city of the year in 2000 and this legacy lives on as Bergen punches well above its weight on the cultural scene, with many musical bands and innovative theater groups emerging from a cultural surge called the ‘Bergen Wave’

As I could not contact a friend, Tone, I checked in at the youth hostel and revisited the boat to bring a few handfuls of stuff back to the hostel. After I had sorted myself out but before a shower, shave and cloths change another friend Arne arrived from the mountains. We went out for a coffee and bumped into Tone who was on babysitting duty over the weekend with nephews and nieces. I was good to see them both. We had spent many happy summers walking and climbing in the Jotunheimen while I was doing the 2000 metres summits here some 8-4 years ago.

Tone left to take the brood back to the brood’s home outside town and I chatted with Arne for another few hours until I had to leave to do the writing and other pressing office work. I tried to finish that evening but by midnight I still had a day to go and postponed it until tomorrow.

It had been a wet day with a fair bit of stress finding a place to moor the kayak and finding somewhere to stay in the pouring rain. There was the inevitable disappointment about the lack of spraydeck and how to forward it for the next stage in this saga to minimize and further hassle and detour. In the afternoon however it was great to catch up with Arne and Tone before I returned to try and clear the office work.

Distance 50km | Time 11.5hrs | Ascent 0m | Descent 0m

I managed an early start from Mjomna and got away by 0800. It was overcast but dry and virtually wind still. I thought if I could do the lion’s share of the distance to Bergen today I might be able to reach Platou Sport before it closed on Saturday afternoon. This was the shop which kindly agreed to receive my new Reed spraydeck from the UK.

The first part of the day was more of the larger channels between grey rocky islands of gneiss which I experienced yesterday. It was easy paddling and not at all challenging. I soon reached the end of this wider channel by the hamlet of Gravika. From here I had to cross the 7-8 km wide Fensfjord. There was a slight south easterly wind blowing now and it had an evil smell.

This smell turned out to be the refinery across the other side of the open Fensfjord at Mongstad. It was just 7-8 km away. It was a large refinery with a few flare towers and some ships unloading their thick black cargo. The smell of the refinery was quite powerful and the sight was quite a shock after the relatively pristine last 2000 km with just a hint of industry compared to this. Luckily I was not going past it and as I paddled over the fjord it soon disappeared from sight. The smell lingered though.

The crossing of Fensfjord was also easy but the increasing south east wind started to produce a few waves and through a few rain showers with it. The wind never reached force four and it hardly impeded me and I soon reached Kilstraumen.

Here for once there was a good current flowing and it was in the direction I was going. There was a large basin of water ahead called Lurefjord. This basin only had three narrow channels connecting it to the sea and this one at Kilstraumen was one. The water was flowing in like a mature river through the 100 metre wide channel trying to fill the basin and I rode along on it for a brisk 2 km.

It eventually spilled me into the basin of Lurefjord which was another land altogether. This had the feel of an inland lake. It was only the jelly fish and seaweed which gave it away. There were masses of small islands covered in tall spruce and pine and the undergrowth was thick with willow and rowan.

My pace slowed considerably now as I weaved in and out of the islets and islands stopping to take photos and admire the lush surroundings. It was a bit like paddling in the Stockholm archipelago. I deliberately sought the smaller channels even if it was not the most direct route just to explore. I was sitting back now and reclining in the seat. There were a few cabins here and there tucked away in forest glades.

When I got to Vallerneset I managed to ask someone if the channel I wanted to go through later was navigable. He confirmed it was so I headed south down the west end of Luroy island to the hamlet of Instebo where a friend of mine in Bergen hails from. It was the usual hamlet with a couple of still operating small farms and the other farms now being leisure homes.

The channel started across the water from Instebo. It was called Grunnesund, translated as Shallow Sound. It was a quiet and enchanting strip of water which was at times only 20-30 metres wide and a metre deep. The whole of Grunnesund was about 3 km long. There were a few cabins along the side to the east end but otherwise it was deserted all the way to Radsund at Festo.

Radsund was anything but deserted. It was like going straight from a farm track onto a motorway. The whole sound was buzzing with cabin cruisers mostly heading northwards. It was Friday late afternoon and everybody would be heading up to their cabins on the islands in the basin of Lurefjord. There was a constant wash. Then suddenly from around a corner appeared not one but two of the large high speed express boats. There was a speed limit here otherwise crashes would have been inevitable.

After Festo, Radsund opened up a bit for the next 10 odd km, with farms on each side of the sound and the odd hamlet along the steepening shores. It was not really good fishing grounds here compared to the outer isles along the coast but there were still quite a few older boatsheds. The nearer I got to Alverstraumen the larger the hamlets got with some house perched high above the water with steep steps down to boat sheds.

At Alverstraumen there were some more islands again and some were formed into nice gardens with a lavish older house among more exotic deciduous trees like copper beech. There were many other houses along the bank with all manner of boatsheds from decorative wooden ones to large old corrugated sheds with a mess of broken moss covered boats beside along the damp bank.

There was quite a current here and it was against me now as the basin was filling again. It lasted for about 2 km and at times I had to paddle hard to keep moving forwards. Eventually I passed under the high bridge and paddled into the relatively still waters on the larger Radoyfjord.

It was now getting late and I needed somewhere to camp. The trouble was it was getting quite built up now and the sides of the fjord were steep, and it was difficult to find a suitable place which was not a garden. I found something which looked flat and unpopulated on the map on the island of Flatoy a few km ahead and decided to head down to it. From there Bergen was within easy striking distance.

I paddled into the sound south of Haoya and past a hotel and marina on Holsnoy island called Litle Bergen which looked exclusive. As I paddled round Haoya and before I got to Flatoy I came across a grassy lawned area with a couple of stone jetties and a tiny beach. It was a quiet recreation area belonging to the council. It was on the site of ruined barracks and artillery emplacements which went back many centuries. It was getting late and would be dark soon and this was the perfect camp spot. What a stroke of luck.

I put the tent up and started to write at a picnic table while I cooked. The midges however drove me mad and I had to abandon it and get into the sanctuary of the tent. Here I soon felt drowsy and crashed out.

It had been a very good day. The paddling was easy to almost be boring but the wonderful scenery in Lurefjord was enchanting and idyllic.

Distance 39km | Time 8.5hrs | Ascent 0m | Descent 0m

The weather forecast said it would be wet and windy in the morning but it was much better than predicted and my lie in was scuppered. I got up at 0800 and had the kayaked packed and on the water for 1000. As I paddled out of the bay I chatted with a local who was cleaning some old wooden crab pots. It was not this road to Leknessund but the next on west to Avloyp which was the Millionaires Road I mentioned yesterday.

I rounded the corner and paddled the km I battled with yesterday. There was a slight wind but I made much better time. This was a grey and wild landscape with barely any earth where trees grew let alone for cultivation. As I paddled down Hersviksund the village of Hersvik appeared. It was a green oasis in the grey landscape. There were a few fields here but this would have been a former fishing community.

I left this sound and went north round the top of Huoy island where there were many islets, and a few even with trees and cabins. There seemed to be a lot of mink here which would have hammered the bird population nesting here.

I noticed that all the rock here was conglomerate. That is pebbles, cobbles and boulders which have been laid down in a river bed or estuary and then the spaces in between filled with sand and silt. This whole deposit which could have been even a kilometre thick and as vast as the Nile or Amazon delta now was then metamorphosed into rock by tremendous heat, pressure or both. This conglomerate rock extended the whole way to Sognesjoen.

I crossed the barely open Lagoyfjord for 4-5 km and reached the tiny hamlet of Avloyp. The wind was almost absent and the weather clement. After Avloyp I entered a mass of small and medium sized islands. Rich Lennox in Askvoll had been right to send me this way. I slowly paddled through channels between this conglomerate rock looking at the constituent pebbles and boulders and marveling at the barrenness of the archipelago. There were a few pockets of spruce where earth had accumulated but mostly it was sparse heather and grey rock. You could see it had not been long since the ice retreated from here.

I paddled over to Lagoy, where someone had tried some farming once, and then headed down the Liasund sound towards the town of Solund. On the way down the sound I passed many other islands including Faeroy until the sound narrowed. There was the very pretty sheltered town of Solund on the east side with a few shops and the main church of this council. While on the west side was the village of Steinsund. Both these places were refreshingly lush and green but the grey outcrops even burst through the spruce woods and lawns here.

I paddled under the bridge connecting these two settlements and then headed south down Indre Steinsund until it opened up into Sognesjoen. Sognesjoen was the sea end of Sognefjord, perhaps the longest, largest and deepest fjord in the world. From the sea to the very end of one of its arms called Lustrafjord it is 250 km long. It has about 15 arms many of which are famous fjords in themselves. The total coastline of Sognefjord must be over 2,000 km.

It was made by a river of ice which drained a large part of the icecap westwards. This river scoured a deep trench into the rocks until it reached the sea. The river of ice then started to float and carve icebergs which drifted away. Therefore at the very west of this fjord where it meets the sea it is not that deep, as the ice did not carve the rock so relentlessly here. Further east in the fjord the ice has carved a trench well over a km below the current sea level. When the ice melted the sea flooded into this trench and created the fjord.

Today there are a few dozen glaciers and an ice sheet which feed the rivers which flow into the fjord so there is a tremendous amount of fresh water flowing into the fjord. It all has to leave through the 5 km wide mouth across Sognesjoen. In addition to that the whole fjord has to fill up and empty with at least a metre of tidal water twice each day and these create strong currents.

These currents then flow into the oncoming swell and waves and it can become a difficult sea. I was therefore keen to cross while I could. As it was today it was perfect. I hardly noticed a tide, there were no waves and the swell here was just a metre and within an hour I was on the other side by the island of Hille. I stopped here for a pause and rang Tom Amundsen who was also paddling the Norwegian coast. He finished yesterday so I congratulated him and hope to see him when I paddle past Sandnes in about 10 days.

There was no conglomerate rock here but a return to the old gneiss basement which forms the bedrock of Western Norway. The conglomerate north of Sognefjord would have probably have been sitting on this far older gneiss. The remnants of the Caledonian Mountains in Norway which virtually run its whole length are huge chunks of rock which were pushed up onto this gneiss platform.

Otherwise the landscape on this side of the fjord was similar to the archipelago on the north side. There were masses of grey rocky islands and most were not that high. Between the islands in the channels and sounds were plenty of salmon farms.

The seagull chicks were almost full grown now but retained the juvenile brown plumage and beak. Nearly all could fly quite well. They still could not catch food and whined continually for their parents to regurgitate food. They followed their parents across the skerries whining and jabbing the parent’s beak with their own with relentless insistence.

As with the north side of Sognesjoen there were very little camping spots. The ice scoured rock did not offer good landing places either and there were no beaches at all. I therefore homed in on the hamlets among the islands where there was usually some landing place and a field or two. So I set my sights on Mjomna some 6-7 km further south.

Mjomna did indeed have a beach and a field and I had the tent up by 2000. There was also a hardware shop here and an old Lutheran church which was the usual white. I think there were about 20 houses and I should imagine the population was around 50. There was virtually no mobile reception however so I could not update from here that evening.

I sat outside on a table near the hardware store and on the jetty where the express boat arrived from Bergen and then minibuses ferried the passengers to the outlying communities from here. I had finished the blog by 2200 and then went back to the tent to make the usual simple supper.

It had been a very good day paddling through the almost alien landscape which was different to but just as barren as Finnmark.

Distance 21km | Time 5.5hrs | Ascent 0m | Descent 0m

After a much too late a night where I got into my sleeping bag and fell asleep with Rich still telling outdoor stories and talking, I still felt drowsy when I woke at 0700. I had to have another couple of hours sleep. At 0900 Rich made some great and powerful coffee and I had the breakfast from the shop. We chatted while I packed and then Rich helped me carry the bags to the kayak. I eventually launched at 1130.

It had clouded over a bit from the perfect blue skies of the early morning and there was just the slightest south east wind. Looking back to Askvoll I could see it was quite small for a town and was more of a large village. It was a busy port however with the express catamaran ferries coming from Bergen and then local ferries radiating out after its arrival.

I paddled out past a couple of islands which were nature reserves and then started to cross the open 7-8 km of Vilnesfjord. Vilnesfjord was really the outer portion of the 40 km long Dalsfjord which cut a deep slot inland from Askvoll. The tide was going out and there was quite a current flowing west from it. When I paddled over Vilnesfjord I found I was doing about 7 km as opposed to the usual 5.5 km per hour.

I made a line for the west end of the peninsula where there was a small hamlet of Eina. It was a relatively easy and quick crossing but towards the end the wind was up to a force three from the south and I had to put on my jacket for the splashes. At the end of this peninsula were a couple of medium sized islands called Lammetu and Lutelandet.

I entered the sounds between Lammetu and Lutelandet and it was a world of small channels and islets. Some islets were ice-scoured and bare yet others were covered in pine and spruce. The nearer the mainland the more forest there was. It was a lovely area to explore and I saw an otter here. I crossed under a simple suspension bridge connecting Lammetu to the mainland and then turned into the sound between Lammetu and Lutelandet, called Folsund, which was more bare ice scoured rock. The wind however was still increasing and it was almost a force four now.

At the west end of Folsund I had to leave the protection of the islands and venture out into Bufjorden. The obvious route was to the south down Krakhellesund, but Rich had advised against this as it could be a boring slog in a headwind and it was also the shipping lane. He suggested I head out to the islands of Solund where there were masses of channels and islets and much better nature. He was very knowledgeable so I believed him. However it meant crossing Bufjord.

As I set off on this 6-7 km crossing the wind was a force four with quite a few white caps. The wind had now also veered to a south south west and was pretty much against me. I could see the main channel down Krakhellesund to the south. It was a deep slot in grey mountains and the wind would have been squeezed up it. There were about three ships in Bufjord coming out of and going into this channel.

I set off keeping an eye out for these three ships and initially made good progress into the weather towards Leknessund on the other side. However about half way across the force four plus increased to a force five and then up to a six. The sea was now covered in breaking white caps and the near metre waves were steep as they piled towards me.

The kayak was slicing through some of the waves but generally was rising up and slapping down into the next. Spray was everywhere and was lifting off the whitecaps and forming streaks on the water. It was sometimes difficult to see. My progress ground almost to a halt and I was just making 2-3 km per hour. I could not build any momentum as the oncoming waves just knocked me back. Frequently a wave would run up the deck and green water hit me in the torso. I had to keep the paddle blades quite low to avoid them taking on a will of their own in the wind.

It took about an hour to complete the remaining 3 km of this otherwise simple crossing and it was not until I was only a few hundred km from Leknessund that the waves and then the wind eased. To the south the main channel and the rest of the island of Sula looked very dramatic and stark. That was not an idyllic landscape of green fertile soils and fjord but towering buttresses of bare grey rock over a dark fjord. It looked very Wagner.

Reasonably wet with spray I reached the quiet of Leknessund. It was idyllic and the hamlet fringed the quiet sheltered waters of the bay. About 20 herons took off when I paddled past an islet. There were some modern houses here and some traditional ones with old boatsheds lining the water. There was plenty of spruce forest on the land helping to shelter the hamlet.

There was no road here previously as the council deemed it too expensive to make. Then a resident of the hamlet won the lottery and gave the council an interest free loan to build the road which it did. The road is locally called ‘Millionaires Road’.

I paddled through the sound and under the narrow bridge which connected both sides of the sound and had lunch in the kayak here. The wind had dropped off again. As I ate a sailing boat moored up nearby. After the late lunch I set off again and paddled past the sailing boat round the point and into Hersviksund. The wind was back and it was powering up this sound. In half an hour I went a km and I was really looking to camp as paddling was futile.

With nowhere to camp and very little prospect of campspots ahead along this ice-scoured landscape I decided to turn back to Leknessund. I completed the returning km in well under 10 minutes. I paddled past the sailing boat and chatted briefly with them. They said they measured the wind at 16 metres per second which is a force seven but I don’t think it was so much.

I found a place to camp near the bridge where I ate an hour previously and had the tent up by 1730. By now it was raining too. I initially had a snooze and then at 2000 started to write. The wind continued to rattle the tent and the showers pelted it from time to time. I was done by 2200 and looked forward to an early night and with this forecast a possible lie in.

It had been a mixture of a day. The slow start was compensated by the rapid crossing of Vilnesfjord and the islands of Lammetu and Lutelandet were lovely. The crossing of Bufjord will be memorable and the decision to stop early and camp was for the best.