Summer vacation, day 9
Index
| Peak | Height | PF | Municipality |
| Brattholmen (Bukkøya) | 81m | 81m | Rødøy, Norway |
| Rommersheia (Gjessøya) | 81m | 81m | Rødøy, Norway |
Continued from day 8
Another gorgeous day on Rødøy. The plan for today was to explore the islands and islets outside Rødøy. Anne’s wrist was still not healed so she would spend the day “in town” (Rødøy centre) and otherwise do what she felt like doing – along with Karma.
I wasn’t quite sure what plans Bjørn Eirik had, but I got the feeling that he wanted to spend the day as he pleased and so we went different ways. Which was OK with me. I had plans.
But first we just had to check if it was technically possible to take Karma for a spin in the kayak. It was, but we would not be going far from shore in case she jumped out…
And then I was on my way…
The first thing on my list was to stop by Bukkøya and hike Brattholmen (81m) I don’t normally collect tops with a primary factor < 100m, but I figured I would get some nice pictures from these tops.
The hike up Brattholmen was short. 0,4km up and 0,4km down. Despite the modest 81m above the sea level, I was rather pleased with the views…
Then I moved on to Gjessøya.
Bjørn Eirik had mentioned that we could possibly meet at the “Skjærgårdsro” cafe on Gjessøya at 2pm, but the time was 11am and I had no plans that involved spending 3 hours here. Turns out he didn’t show either, so…
I sat the course for the cafe and I hoped if I could buy a cold drink. I couldn’t. There was no longer any services offered here.
So, I decided to visit Rommersheia (81m) instead – the high point on the island. I followed a path to Nordvågen where the low tide gave me easy access to the western tops on the island.
I followed a gully across the first “hump” and then got Rommersheia in view.
I took a direct and steep approach to Rommersheia – a quite fun route, actually!
From the top, I could see that the most stunning places for kayaking was outside Gjessøya. Surely, Bjørn Eirik would find his way here. But I didn’t have any plans to kayak around the island to get to the places I could see from the top. I’d rather return to Anne and Karma.
It was nice to see Træna and Trænstaven again! Very good memories from the climb in 2014 came back again…
I took a different route down from Rommersheia but eventually ended up in Nordvågen again. Back at the kayak, I sat course for camp but took (of course) a different route back.
As I approached Rødøy, I got fascinated by the unnamed, lower top north/northwest of Rødøyløva summit. I decided to see if it was possible to get to this top later in the afternoon.
Back at the camp, we spent some time with our neighbours – a family of 5 that had come here by public transport (train, bus, boat). Anne and I thought that was quite impressive, given the fact that the youngest one was still a baby (3 years old).
We chatted with the two young boyd and asked them if they knew what our kayak pumps a) were and b) what they were used for. After testing it out, they concluded it was a pump but they didn’t know why we needed it. As such, Anne and I decided to demonstrate kayak self rescue. THEN they understood what the pump was for.
We let the family have some fun in our kayaks and we could always hope that this would be one of -hopefully many- vacation highlights.
Later on, I decided to explore the north top and Anne wanted to come along. We had a nice walk along the shore before we started the hike upwards.
From a distance, it didn’t seem that there were any easy routes up. A steep, grassy slope was obviously the route one would follow – if one absolutely had to get up there. I concluded that I could climb it, but that I would prefer a rope for the descent. As such, it was just a matter of getting some pictures before I decided to turn around.
Cool terrain, though!
It was another good day on Rødøy. I looked forward to tomorrow, when Anne and I would go to Rangsundøy and hike the two main tops on the island.
Bjørn Eirik eventually showed up. He could report that he had be doing more chillin’ than kayaking and could report that the waters outside the islands were more serious than in-between the islands and islets. He also told us that he saw two moose on the very outer islets, staring at him before they went for a swim. Apparently, there are lots of moose on these islands. Some in transit, some locals. I wished I could have seen that. While it’s a normal sight out here, it would have been stunning to see…
We had reserved a table at Klokkergården in the evening. We also had dinner there back in 2014 and looked forward to a revisit. Bjørn Eirik decided to go there by kayak, while the rest of us walked. Karma would have to wait in my car – which was parked nearby.
We had a 3-course meal and enjoyed our food. But it wasn’t quite near the experience we had back in 2014. Not quite what we expected at a restaurant of this standard, so to speak. Maybe we just picked the wrong main course, I don’t know. In any case, it was nice to back – 7 years later. It’s an amazing place.
Continued on day 10
Trip statistics: 16,4km (kayak), 7,5km (hike), 390 vertical meters, 7h:20m
Pictures (Canon EOS RP/ Iphone8) from the day:
