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.

Friday, June 20th, 2025
Hovden, Norway to Flekkefjord Norway
Distance travelled 377 kilometres
(includes 161 kilometres to the Avik and Lindesnes lighthouses)

The big thing about Norway is its silence. Admittedly, we do live in a city, but our apartment is on the inside of the block and on the top floor overlooking a quiet park. It is never as quiet though, even in the darkest depths of a Winter’s night, as Norway is, just as a matter of course.
I awoke to the sun, streaming through the gap in our curtains which, I guess, meant our room was facing east. So far (but I had no idea how far) inland, there were no piping Oystercatchers – and surprisingly, although there were a lot of small birds about, I could not hear any birdsong either. Maybe they were all too busy breeding, the season so far north must be fairly short.

I made Lucie a coffee, with the in-room Nespresso machine – but the water was not really hot enough to make good tea, so I passed on that and just drank the milk.

I rave about Norwegian hotel breakfasts and had no need not to do it again. Quality food, a great selection (but still no herring). We ate it at the same corner table, with the view, that we had used the previous evening.

Lucie packed with her customary speed and efficiency and by 09:30 we were ready to hit the route 9 in the southerly direction. The sun was shining so we put our waterproofs into the pannier – in the event we did not need to get them out again. In the car-park next to us was a brand new Indian Chief (the 121 cubic inch model – inches are so important to us boys !) and a Harley Fat Boy, that was slightly more modern than the one we had at home. Their riders, a Norwegian couple, chatted briefly with us. They were on their way to the far north, but the Chief was showing an engine light and they were about to head back south again to find an Indian dealership.

We set off with them a few hundred metres behind and rode south. The first forty kilometres, or so, was a glorious, scenic ride.

But then we came to a seemingly unending series of road “improvements”. That meant build a narrow track, sprinkle it liberally with gravel, put up a set of traffic lights, dig up the old road, go away completely or just hide in the forest.

Then, finally, the way cleared and we could do some more really enjoyable riding in the sunshine. We continued through some quite awesomely lovely countryside on a sinuous and dry road. There was hardly any traffic, but 80 kph felt right and as we did not really have far to go, we did not hurry. At some point, the trailing pair of motorcycles departed towards the West with a cheery wave.

At Nomeland, we left route 9 for the route 455, which is known as the “Suleskardveien”. This climbed steeply, which of course I found a bit disconcerting, but this far south there was no snow above the tree-line. Although the way was a bit narrow in places and with a lot of sheep on or near the road, it was a glorious ride through some harsh but beautiful scenery of rocks, lakes and long vistas. There was quite a lot of traffic, big camper vans that nearly blocked the roads abounded, but thanks to the local temperament and prevailing common sense, there were very few holdups.


There were also a LOT of motorcycles, that route must appear on a “must ride” list somewhere. They were mainly dual sports, of course, but with a sprinkling of more sporty stuff. We did also pass a large group of Harleys going the other way. I think it is fair to say that taking a slightly challenging road at a sensible speed was great fun, even on our relatively heavy Softail.

We came off of the mountain at almost the exact halfway point between Hovden and our destination, the town of Flekkefjord. Opposite the turning was a petrol station/service centre called “Joker”. The name probably related, in some way, to the weird positioning of the petrol pumps, which was tantamount to active concealment. After we managed to find them and fill up, we watched quite a number of motorists pull in, look around – and then leave. There was nothing funny about their coffee, chocolate and cakes though, a nice filler for ourselves to help us on our way.

Lots of the local housing had grass growing on the roof, which led to quite a discussion about how it is kept there and so on …..

We now found ourselves on route 468, which, like all the routes around there seemed to have a name, in this case, the “Sirdalsweien”. This was another lovely road. It followed the riverbank and fjord shoreline as it slowly descended, over quite a distance, until it was running along the bottom of a green valley.

At Tonstadt, we came to route 42 and our direction took us across a bridge. Almost unbelievably, people were swimming in the water !!!
We followed the route 42 for a time. It was another glorious road to be riding at 80 kph and I was having so much fun that I completely missed our turn onto route 466. It was amazing how narrow the road seemed when I was trying to turn the Harley around.

The 466 was a good road, but far less frequented and a bit narrow. The same lovely scenery of forests and lakes bordered it and it was still fun, even at a reduced speed. At one point, we caught up with a “moped school”. An instructor on a “proper” motorcycle was shadowing four lads, riding on mopeds, wearing bright yellow vests that proclaimed them to be students. We sped by. Keep it up lads – and one day you can do that too !

At Flikka, we came to and joined, the E39 which is the main road between Kristiansand and the port of Stavanger on the West coast. It was a good road, but with a lot of freight traffic and had the usual 80 kph speed limit. Luckily, we only had about fifteen kilometres to go to our destination town of Flekkefjord.

Flekkefjord is a quaint little place and we were staying at the Grand Hotell (their spelling !). It was built in a white, weatherboard style, as indeed the whole town centre appeared to be. The hotell did not look imposingly grand, but it offered a very friendly welcome, covered parking and our room was very nice.

We still had something else that we wanted to do. In truth, the list of “must sees” in the area was more than a bit sketchy, but one thing that was mentioned was the lighthouse at Lindesnes. The lighthouse was only about sixty kilometres away and it was only about 16:00, so that made it the proverbial “no brainer”.

We jumped back onto the, now unladen, Softail and headed south. Initially, this was on the E39, on which we had arrived in town and which, a bit further south was in the process of a substantial upgrade. When that is finished, it looks like it will be a toll road for cars at least, but fortunately for Lucie’s pay card, the work is not complete and we were on a Harley anyway. We were diverted onto what will soon be the “old” E39, which itself is not a bad road and, shortly after that, away into the countryside.

Our route became increasingly rural and, eventually, the voice in my head directed me to a place called Avik. When we arrived there, it was a tiny fishing village that was as cute as any you will ever see. We crossed a little bridge to the end of the land, where there was room to turn around. What we could not immediately see was a lighthouse.

Looking around, we spotted a circular, pointed red roof, a short way back into the town. We jumped on the Harley, rode back a short distance and parked. Then we took a short walk until we found it. It was a bit cute and it was a certainly lighthouse of sorts, but I was puzzled. The sole purpose of a lighthouse is to be visible from miles away at night. This one was scarcely noticeable from across a small inlet, albeit in sunshine.

Lucie does not get much wrong, so I asked, somewhat hesitantly, if she was certain that we were in the right place …..

She had typed lighthouse into Google ™ maps and it had brought us, with its usual accuracy to that point. However using unfailing navigational capabilities carries with it a necessity to type in the right destination. She had to put her hands up, she had not done that. However did people manage in the middle-ages, or even, for the sake of argument, 1995 ?

It was the work of only a few moments to figure out what we had done wrong and where we needed to go. Then it was back onto the Softail and little Avik disappeared forever in the rear view mirrors. It was such a tiny place, we decided that everyone in town knew we were there, even before our bike had stopped ticking. In our imagination, the inhabitants are still, to this day, pondering why we came there and what it was that we had wanted….

Our new route hugged the coast and the up and down of the topography presented Lucie with beautiful sea views at every turn. As usual, my need to concentrate on the skinny road and blind corners prevented me from sharing most of that.

At one place, in a small bay near Spangereid, there was a massive GE factory, the purpose of which was not made clear by its signage. We hoped it was not some sinister plant, deliberately “hidden away” from prying eyes ….. (I subsequently looked it up, it says “Healthcare” …)

At length, caused more by the skinny roads than the distance, we came to the real object of our trip, the Lindesnes lighthouse. It jutted up on a headland and was visible from quite a distance inland, let alone way out at sea. There were a lot of tourists swarming about, presumably they had not been diverted by the charms of Avik.

The lighthouse stands at the most southerly point in Norway that is accessible by road. It is possible to get further south, but it would involve rather a long hike. The car park had one of those “distance to” signs that claimed it was 2,518 kilometres to the Nordkapp. By air possibly, the roads in Norway are far too twisty for that to be a driving distance.

Our detour had, actually, saved us some money. The whole of the Lindesnes lighthouse “complex” was a museum and you had to pay, even just to walk around. But that was from 10:00 to 17:00 (9:00 to 19:00 in the Summer which, apparently, begins on June 23rd), so, as it was 16:58, a very brief hesitation got us a freebie.

On the other side of the barrier it was, essentially, a lighthouse. We walked there up a quite steep path. Made of curved metal, cast-iron sections and in classic red and white, it was built in 1915. It did boast a fairly hefty light.

I went in and climbed to the lookout level, the light mechanism was higher up behind a locked staircase, safely beyond the reach of my greasy fingers.

The reason it was a museum was that it was an ancient and seemingly fortified site. It still, in Norwegian, bore the suffix “fyr” (fire) and the first recorded fire was lit there in 1656 to keep ships from the rocks – or maybe, to lure them onto them …

We looked around, took some pictures and ticked another mental box.

We set of back towards Flekkefjord and our return route soon became different. We really would never see Avik again.

The return route was also very beautiful, but the roads were pretty narrow in places. It may have been only my perception, but the driving of the locals appeared less controlled. They seemed to take the corners a bit wide, even when they could not see ahead, which meant that, a couple of times, we felt the breeze of some vehicle passing by very close indeed. I suggested to Lucie that these coastal folk probably had more Viking in their genes and did not care much if they casually slaughtered a few foreigners.

We arrived back at the hotell around seven. For such a cute little town, there was a paucity of places to go and eat. The very best place according to Google ™ maps was, errr, the Grand Hotell, but we wanted to save that until the following night, which was mid-Summer’s Day.

So, we evaluated the rest of the places, which did not take long as there were only four and none of them sold fish. We settled on Bryggen, which was only six minutes walk (for out of shape people) from our front door and which billed itself as a Pizzeria.

Flekkefjord really was a sweet little place, all white board housing and quiet streets. There was bunting above the streets – and it was knitted ! It was that kind of place.

I mentioned that the streets were quiet and, by that, I mean in a post-apocalyptic kind of way. It was a warm Friday night, but there was nobody at all on the streets. We easily found Bryggen (Elvegaten 22, 4400 Flekkefjord) and were delighted that shellfish, at least, were also on the menu. I had some nicely cooked mussels and Lucie had crayfish. We also forced down the pancake dessert, the accompanying ice-cream was a bit special.

Our table overlooked what the waitress (who called the cutlery the “utensils”) described as the “ocean” but which was actually a channel between two pieces of sea. A few motorboats chugged back and forth, perhaps THAT is what the people of Flekkefjord do on Friday nights ….

On our walk home, we did see a few local teenage boys pulling wheelies on their bicycles, but we saw no teenage girls for them to impress.

Usual story, we got back to our room and I quickly took a trip to dreamland.

 

You can see the day’s ride here …