NOTE: The Norwegian language contains a lot of letters that are not on my keyboard. In most cases, I have typed in English without them.

Saturday, June 21st, 2025
Brufjell and Flekkefjord, Norway
Distance travelled 43 kilometres
Distance hiked 3.8 kilometres

Strange things sometimes come into your mind when you first wake up.
I remembered that it was the “longest” day, but then I wondered whether that meant that it got lighter a tiny fraction earlier and dark a tiny fraction later – or whether the difference was tacked on one end or the other. I expected that even the ancient stargazers could have told me, or possibly, as they were all dead and gone, I could probably have found out by looking it up on Google ™, but that was only if I remembered to do that and, let us face it, I probably would not.

Our breakfast was again herring free – I was beginning to wonder if that was a regional thing. There was smoked salmon and I was already pondering what I would do about the absence of that when I got home, together with hams, cheeses and of course bacon and eggs. Herring or not, we did not go hungry !

After the little blip of the previous afternoon, Lucie ruthlessly researched details about and, more specifically the exact location of, our target for the day, Brufjell and its Potholes.

Brufjell was only about twenty kilometres away and it was warm and sunny, so we rode there in just light clothing. The route was the, by then, standard mix of narrow roads, blind bends with the occasional hairpin thrown in, trees and lakes.

It was all very lovely, but coming off of the road, on either side was not something that you would want to do. In one place, immediately after a downhill hairpin, someone had recently come a cropper and there were warning signs about spilled oil that I took rather seriously. From the pattern of the skid and impact marks, I rather feared it had been a motorbike that crashed, but I cannot say that for sure.

In time, the lakes gave way to sea and we wound our way to the very end of the surfaced road and parked the Harley in a shaded space. The start of the walk to the potholes was only a few metres away, perfect.

Norway appears to grade its hiking trails in a manner similar to that used for ski runs, blue, red and black. There was a bit of blue, but the signed tracks were predominantly red and black. A prominent notice board gave all sorts of dire warnings about falling off of a track on the cliff and drowning in the sea below.

We were also advised against feeding the local “wildlife” ….

The areas famous potholes, it transpired, are at the bottom of a cliff and only accessible after a long, vertical, descent down an iron-runged ladder. As that would also have meant a long, vertical ascent back up again to what was marked as a black trail, our collective decision was to give the potholes a miss. So near, as they say and yet so far.

But the hike to the beach and lighthouse was red at the worst and with a bit of blue. So away up the red track we went. We do quite a bit of hiking and this was a tough one from the very start. Before we had even climbed the first hundred metres, the decision to shun the black route looked to be a very sensible choice.

The red track was extremely steep, rocky, not well marked and totally obstructed in a few places by fallen trees. Despite what the song implies, Norwegian wood is not always good. Finally and almost miraculously for an accident-prone person like me, we finally found the junction with the blue and the black tracks unscathed. We continued on the blue track – which was still very difficult and treacherous going. Maybe Norwegians are simply tougher than the rest of us.

Above the path we spotted a bit of green. We scrambled up, normal walking was not happening anywhere around there and were rewarded with a view over a bay, about half a kilometre distant. It had a stony shore and some huge rocks just above the high tide line. We could also just see the top of a lighthouse on the headland above it. We decided that it was time for “Little Tripy” to do his thing. Little Tripy is a small tripod that we have, quite literally, dragged to the very ends of the earth – and then usually forgotten to use after we had done that. We can put my iPhone in it and, by virtue of a BlueTooth beeper, take pictures that we are both in. Anyway, out came the tripod and, after a few false starts, we got some fairly nice snaps.

We descended on the blue track, which was pretty uneven and difficult going, down to the beach. The shore was extremely pebbly with a pronounced tide-line and a few of the aforementioned huge rocks.

Naturally, I had to stand in the sea. The water, in case you care, was quite bitterly cold.

Then we hiked back out of there and into the woods. We located the blue trail and had to climb a ladder to get to the next part of it.

Deeper in the woods, we found the poorly marked branch of the track which led to the lighthouse. This was another steep, rocky and quite strenuous walk, even though it was still only graded blue. When we got there, the light was inside a small construction that was fixed to the very edge of the point. Very Avik like, but actually visible to shipping. It was, rather cleverly, powered by its own solar panel. I had to wonder how well it operated in the dead of Winter, when there is hardly any sun.

There were some wonderful views from the point, particularly if you like rocky cliffs and blue seas. Despite the bright sunshine, the winds from the sea were very cold, so, for Lucie’s sake we did not linger long because those same winds kept blowing her cigarette out.

Back in the woods and still on the blue trail, we encountered a strange and rather wonderful sight, It was a pool which, despite the presence of the sea nearby, was of fresh water – and it was covered with flowering water-lilies. Admittedly, neither the lily leaves, nor the flowers were very big, but water-lilies they were. Amazing ! A botanist of my acquaintance said it was her favourite moment of the trip up to that point. That was not a wise thing to say when you are kneeling on the very edge of a pond, trying to get a close-up of a water-lily. She is lucky that I am such a kind person.

We carried on and came to a great view over a bay. It was so lovely that poor Little Tripy was called into action for a second time ! As it was only Mid-Summer’s day, his Christmas certainly came very early !

There were lots of sheep grazing wild  !

We completed our descent and, despite the somewhat paltry length of the hike, I was very glad to finally see our little Softail (we were still quite a way above it) parked where we had left it.

There was a marked lack of signs leading to the walk. It seemed that the potholes are a big favourite with “Instagrammers” (whatever that means). Given the harshness and uncompromising nature of the terrain, this is probably to prevent clowns in flip-flops carrying a selfie stick getting anywhere near them. The whole site is tough going and not for amateurs and the potholes themselves are for the really serious folks only.

Weird stuff always happens. When we put our helmets on, the intercom had totally stopped working. We fiddled with it and then set off. We stopped and fiddled some more – and in the end we had to ride home in silence. It was quite surprising how much I missed Lucie’s dulcet, yet authoritative, tones in my ear.

Back in Flekkefjord we filled up with petrol in preparation for our ride to Kristiansand the next day. It was an unmanned station, so the usual hoo-ha with the pay card ensued, but we managed to top up the tank.

Back in the comfort of our room, we wasted a half hour of our lives repairing (which meant re-pairing) the Nag O’matic, sorry intercom. It would have been a comical sight to anyone watching. Lucie would fiddle with the buttons and then we would both don our helmets. She would then go into the bathroom and close the door to see if we could hear each other. She kept asking me to say something so, in honour of what day it was, I chose to keep repeating “What fools these mortals be !”. I knew she had finally fixed the intercom when she, also in keeping with the day, told me to “Puck off !”. At least, I hope that is what I heard !!!

Problem fixed, we decided to have an amble around the town. As I have previously mentioned, the whole area around our hotel was almost exclusively comprised of white weatherboard houses. Signage nearby revealed this is the oldest part of Flekkefjord. There were a few boathouses in a different style and colour, but it all had a confusing sameness.

We did locate one house where the windows and doors were surrounded by wood that was NOT white, rather a “natural” wood colour. I could almost hear the neighbours whispering accusingly “THOSE dreadful people at number 32 !!!”

It appeared that, historically, the town’s fortunes were founded on the export of stone, timber and herring, which they sold to the Dutch (so, that is where all the herring went !). Also, rather surprisingly, by monies from Privateers (a nice way of saying Pirates) that seized foreign vessels. It seems that, providing a proportion of the profits (let no man say “the spoils”) was invested in the town and the local magistrate could also pocket 4%, blind eyes were duly turned ….

We wended our way across town until we found we were on the waterfront. Instead of Marlon Brando and Eve-Marie Saint, we happened upon Bryggen again. We sat in the garden and enjoyed two beers with our mutually desired alcohol content. The next day, we would start for home in earnest and it made for a nice relaxing final afternoon before we began eating up the road in earnest once more.

For our evening meal, we chose the restaurant of our own hotell, billed, by Google ™ as the best in town. It was, indeed, a fine meal. As with so many things, by this point in our trip, I am really struggling to find new ways to describe it. We had asparagus (Lucie) and fish cakes with a tangy salsa for me, fish of the day (Lucie) and fish and chips, pleb me and a single dessert of rhubarb creme-brulée, chosen primarily because it was a combination we had never seen before. All well cooked, nicely presented and delicious.

I was pretty full up when we got upstairs, so you can guess where that led to …….