As we approached the village/town of Henningsvær, on the south side of the Lofoten Islands, yesterday afternoon, I spotted a snake of people heading up a path to a pass. The path wasn't shown on my map, but I could see that there was a lake up in that general direction, so assumed that was where everyone was headed. Finding Henningsvær itself to be unworthy of all the hype in the guidebooks and tourist brochure, we decided to see if there were better rewards to be had by a walk up to the lake this morning.
We started off by negotiating our way around and through some boulders...
...helpfully marked with some faded arrows spray-painted here and there. Once past those obstacles, the path simply went upwards, making the occasional pause, to look back and admire the view, welcome:
We had huffed and puffed our way up quite a distance when I spotted the lake ... below us and clearly not on the line of our path. Suddenly we were on a magical mystery tour, but as the path was so popular we expected rewards for our efforts, so on we went.
That lake is definitely not where we are going!
I did eventually crack and look at a map to see where our destination may be. Up a 541m peak was the answer I came up with and it turned out to be correct.
Finally the gradient eases and the summit is before us
A scramble up to the top had us agreeing that this was a far better way to enjoy Henningsvær than by walking around its streets, as we had yesterday afternoon:
The multiple islands of Henningsvær
Looking the other way from the summit
The descent, which came after a sit down for elevenses at the top, was slow and a bit of a knee killer, with erosion that, in places, gave a 'stepping on plates of ball bearings' effect, but even so our accidental hill was a fun way to spend a morning.
1 is where we left Bertie. 2 is the lake to which I thought the path would take us. 3 is where we ended up.
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Earlier in the week/at the weekend:
- On Sunday we were at Haukland Beach where we enjoyed a 5 mile circuit over a pass then back around a headland, on a track squeezed between the sea and some impressive rock walls. No photos were taken on that circuit as we both did it at a run. Here's a snap of the beach next to which we spent a couple of nights, and from where this circuit started:
- on Monday we were at Eggum where we took a stroll along the coast path, past an outdoor art installation in the form of a Head sculpture and up a couple of side valleys. Later that night (technically Tuesday morning, I suppose) we nipped out at just gone 1am to witness the sun not setting).
1.09am, the sun is not close to the horizon and is about to start rising again
There are plenty more snaps (and lots of words, but you can ignore the words!) at www.thegateposts.blogspot.com
We started off by negotiating our way around and through some boulders...
...helpfully marked with some faded arrows spray-painted here and there. Once past those obstacles, the path simply went upwards, making the occasional pause, to look back and admire the view, welcome:
We had huffed and puffed our way up quite a distance when I spotted the lake ... below us and clearly not on the line of our path. Suddenly we were on a magical mystery tour, but as the path was so popular we expected rewards for our efforts, so on we went.
That lake is definitely not where we are going!
I did eventually crack and look at a map to see where our destination may be. Up a 541m peak was the answer I came up with and it turned out to be correct.
Finally the gradient eases and the summit is before us
A scramble up to the top had us agreeing that this was a far better way to enjoy Henningsvær than by walking around its streets, as we had yesterday afternoon:
The multiple islands of Henningsvær
Looking the other way from the summit
The descent, which came after a sit down for elevenses at the top, was slow and a bit of a knee killer, with erosion that, in places, gave a 'stepping on plates of ball bearings' effect, but even so our accidental hill was a fun way to spend a morning.
1 is where we left Bertie. 2 is the lake to which I thought the path would take us. 3 is where we ended up.
Earlier in the week/at the weekend:
- On Sunday we were at Haukland Beach where we enjoyed a 5 mile circuit over a pass then back around a headland, on a track squeezed between the sea and some impressive rock walls. No photos were taken on that circuit as we both did it at a run. Here's a snap of the beach next to which we spent a couple of nights, and from where this circuit started:
- on Monday we were at Eggum where we took a stroll along the coast path, past an outdoor art installation in the form of a Head sculpture and up a couple of side valleys. Later that night (technically Tuesday morning, I suppose) we nipped out at just gone 1am to witness the sun not setting).
1.09am, the sun is not close to the horizon and is about to start rising again
There are plenty more snaps (and lots of words, but you can ignore the words!) at www.thegateposts.blogspot.com
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