A morning with the hárr

This morning a sea mist rolled in with the tide, described here by the 17th century Norse word, a hárr. A Norse word, but it’s used in the northeast of England and eastern Scotland also, with the spelling ‘haar’.

This was a more moist hárr than I have experienced before though, a drizzle-like rain at times, but very welcome after the recent heat. As the tide receded, in late morning, the mist cleared for another fine day, though a bit cooler.

Last night another campervan pulled in at the quay. Its occupants were an Austrian couple about my age. We introduced ourselves last night; they were hikers, so I passed on what I knew about the area.

This morning, before the hárr came in, we had breakfast together on the benches by the shore. They were both mountain guides in the Tyrol, and had been away 5 weeks, similar to me, and on the way home for the season to start in late June. Their clients are mainly Germans.

They were keen at Helvika, two more fingers of these peninsulas over, which has a vast cave in the rock that it is possible to visit.

The vast cave at Helvika.. not possible today.. next time

However, there are no roads any close to access the trail, a hike in would be about twenty kilometres. Access is best therefore by boat. We asked at the quayside hotel, or Brygge, but unfortunately the guy who takes people across in the summer, was out fishing. At that time the hárr drifted in also, so it also wasn’t such a good day for it.

Instead, with Roja, I headed out onto the rocky headland of the Vingsand peninsula, which took in two summits, Merravaden and Äkvikfjellet, at 80 and 82 metres above sea level respectively. It was much harder going than I expected, as the rock was wet; some bits were slippery, some not, but difficult to trust everywhere, especially while ‘running in’ the hip. So it was slow going, we covered six kilometres in two hours. In dry conditions the route wouldn’t be easy either, there are a couple of crevasses in the rock which require jumping skills neither I nor the dog had, so a circuitous route around, and a descent on one route with a 3 metre wooden ladder, beyond the abilities of a dog’s paws, let alone a 7 week old titanium hip. Fortunately I had seen this on the ascent, so returned a different way.

Our arrival back to the van coincided with the sun coming through, and I spent the afternoon reading, catching up with a couple of book reviews and considering options for the journey I have at the weekend, more on that in a couple of days.