August 8th 2015: Norway: Torghatten

Monty the Motorhome is lapping up the luxury of a campsite. We are at Offersøya Camping, to the south of the town of Sandnessjøen.

Last night, after I had posted our daily news we were surprised to see a British motorhome pull onto the car park and draw up next to us. This is only the second British vehicle we’ve seen while in Norway, and the first motorhome. We soon got together and made friends with Stuart and Judith. We were surprised to find they come from Redditch - only a short distance from our home, and Stuart knows someone I used to work with! Small world. They have been motor-homing for 20 years now, and seemed to have travelled all over Europe, so there was plenty of tales they could tell us. 

This morning we moved on and visited Torghatten - a hat shaped mountain standing on it’s own with a large hole, about half way up, passing right through it. A steepish trail leads up to the hole, which at 160 meters long, 35 meters high and up to 15 meters wide is not insignificant. I went up to have a look, leaving Ruth in the van as the steep climb was not to her liking. It was remarkable and somewhat eerie, with a definite echo as one progressed through the hole. 

When I got back down we both walked around the base and were able to view the hole from the far side of the mountain from the car parking area. We could just see people silhouetted against the light as they moved around inside the hole.

The hole is just visible, but at this magnification it is impossible to see people moving around inside

The view from the hole, looking westwards

Then back to the journey northwards, stopping for lunch at Hildurs Urterarium - a food, wine and herb farm. We were the first visitors of the day and got individual attention from the lady running the cafe - she produced samples of all sorts of delicacies hoping we would buy some. Needless to say we obliged and came away with a tangy goats cheese, a rhubarb marmalade that will go well with the cheese, and some chili mayonnaise. We also had a pizza cooked in a wood fired stone oven, which was delicious. 

The route onwards took in two ferries before coming to our overnight camp. We are down by the seashore watching the tide come in, with a somewhat mixed bag of weather - some glorious sunshine followed by rain and low cloud. Apparently this is the worst summer Norway has experienced in 34 years! Trust us to come now.