Day 56 – to Lakshol

Scores of websites, tens of guide books, four different online maps, all that research and I stumbled on this most inspirational of places quite by accident. And it’s certainly one I’ll be back to. It’s at the foot of Håfjelltuva mountain and massif, with several attractive hiking tracks with views over the fjords.

Interesting, for me anyway, is that they are using the same fenceless technology here with the cattle as we are back home in Lowther. It’s supposed to greatly benefit rewilding. All our boundary fences have come down, as they have here. The cattle wear a device, a form of GPS, that delivers an electrical impulse so they basically go where the farmer wants them to from the warmth of his front room. The days of sheep dogs seem also numbered..

We took one of those tracks this morning, and it took us up past two huts, the first of which goes to first place in my Hut of the Hills award for this journey.

The entrance to an old zinc mine.

The Norwegians are proud of their huts. The country’s Trekking Association manages more than 500, but at least that amount again are looked after by local residents, as they themselves like to use them.

Here’s pictures of the two, the second Hulderheimen, has a larger room for groups for which the key must be brought up from town. A smaller room is always open. The first one I came to, Steinbua, was almost like a small cottage, very homely indeed.

The picture on the sign of the Hulderheimen hut (also below), gave me some alarm. So much so, that I looked it up later. It is a troll, or rather wife of a famous troll. The troll, or mound-hag, stores her head beneath her arm, and terrorises local farm families, boiling soup from them, then feeding it to unsuspecting villagers. Cannibalism is a recurring theme in Norwegian folklore. Something to be aware of as a visitor.

In the afternoon I drove another couple of hours south, taking the ferry deviation away from the E6 from Kjøpsvik to Drag. The usual ferry is under ‘urgent’ repair for two months. When I was here cycling a few years ago I used many ferries. You just boarded and during the sailing an attendant would come and charge you. I waited for that to happen today, but technology has moved on.. Your number plate is photographed on entry to the boat, and you receive an invoice, by email ideally, and if not by post. I’ve registered for a website ePass24 which makes things somewhat easier.

My destination was Lakshol, where there is a hike I want to do tomorrow. I was alone in the parking area until late in the evening when another Crafter pulled up. It was a Dutch couple a bit older than me, in a self-converted vehicle, or partly so. They had only just received, on 1 April, their brand new green 4 x 4 van, and had hurriedly done some basic work for this trip, with more to follow. They were very set in what they wanted though, quite different to what I have seen before, for example, all their cooking on a petrol fuelled Coleman stove, outside as much as possible. I have a similar small camping stove, but with it petrol it does get very dirty, and is hard to keep clean. It was a mild and calm night, so we chatted about vans into the night, or at least until conversation steered towards either politics or monarchy, both were alarm words for me to retreat inside.