A Windy Day in Hovden

03/10/2025

OK, where were we? I gave myself a little blogging holiday over Christmas and need to catch up.

In the real world it’s New Years Day 2026 and I’m sitting here blogging in my dressing gown, allowing a mild hangover to disperse after a fun evening celebrating with friends. In the blog it is early October in Norway and we are working our way south along the coast of Norway heading for the Lofoten Islands.

Resolutions

Before I start on the blog proper I just thought I’d share a few new year themed thoughts in the way of resolutions.

The memories of our Norway trip are becoming more hazy and I’m relying on our diary and photos to trigger a more personal account of the trip. One new year resolution is to complete the blogging of our Norway trip by the end of January when we will be setting off on our next big trip. Then I really need to start blogging in real time just like I used to. I’m pretty sure I said that last year too so we’ll see whether that happens.

My relationship with social media has been souring. It’s begun to feel like a chore, all those little hoops to jump through in order to ensure that our posts stay on people’s feeds and so much irrelevant content that an algorithm has decided I have to see. Ideally I want a way to follow the people I enjoy following without being bombarded with random rubbish, and I want to offer the same. Despite having a tiny following it is this blog that is most important to us, it’s the thing we look back at to remind ourselves of our travels. We’ll see how the first quarter of the year goes.

Another resolution is linked to the fact that I have now finished work. Whether that’s a permanent retirement or just another career break I’m undecided, but both Paul and I need to make sure that we don’t sit on our backsides all morning, unproductively watching TV. This will also help with my trail running goals as I’ll need to be up and running from the crack of dawn if I want to get longer distances in. Early morning starts are not natural for either of us, but being dressed and active by 8am shouldn’t be too much of a stretch. We’ll see.

Windy weather

Back to Norway.

After a lovely start to October we woke to a windy and overcast day. We had wanted to walk the coast path around the headland from our park up but when we stepped out of the van we were buffeted by the wind and the type of deceptive fine rain that would soak us before we realised it.

So instead of walking we drove north to explore the rest of this part of Langøya, with it’s perimeter frill of white sand beaches and centre of steep rocky peaks. First, we stopped off at a small but well stocked Joker supermarket. As well as food it had a whole array of useful items including a stand of fishing gear right next to a stand of wool and knitting patterns. These two pastimes seem to be ubiquitous across Norway and although you might label them ‘male’ and ‘female’ respectively we have seen plenty of women fishing and some men knitting.

Along the road we had to drive through a quarry where the rock was being chewed into increasingly small fragments. We presume the resultant hardcore is used for the never ending task of road construction and repair. The wind was blowing rock dust around to add to the layers of grime we were already carrying around.

Quarry works

Hovden

At the end of the road was the fishing village of Hovden. This is a tiny village but has a huge harbour to make the most of the access to the open ocean. The harbour area is surrounded by the triangular fish drying racks that are famous in this part of Norway.

The air drying of fish in such a wet climate might seem contradictory, but in the cold winter months when the fishing boats catch huge volumes of skrei (cod) some way of preserving the excess is needed. The cod are hung over the rows of wooden racks until spring. The end result is ‘Stockfish’, used in traditional Norwegian dishes but also exported to nations as far away as Nigeria.

Fish drying racks lined up along the side of the harbour

We spent the rest of the day exploring the village and surrounds in a series of short walks with frequent stops to seek shelter from the wind and rain. The village felt like a ghost town. Many of the houses were shut up and the only signs of life were a few people working in the fish processing plant at the harbour. The older industrial buildings had been left to slowly disintegrate.

Regardless of the air of mild decrepitude, the surroundings were very beautiful with many small coves and skerries and a backdrop of jagged sea cliffs.

The wind continued to blow strongly all day and in the late afternoon we realised that we wouldn’t get a decent night’s sleep in our current car park. Casting around the area, we realised that there was some official parking next to the community centre. As it was low season we couldn’t use the facilities, but the building provided a welcome wind shield. Later that evening a small panel van turned up, followed by a large motorhome. Like us, they found a sheltered spot to hunker down for the wild night.

Exposed parking in Hovden. We didn’t remember to take a picture of the community centre parking