Solund - Where Norwegians Vacation

Last week, a teacher gave us a note with a name and email address, saying "They didn't find any volunteers this year". We contacted the person and found out that they were still looking for volunteers for the Light Festival in Hardbakke.

While my fellow volunteers left in the morning, I was still working in the canteen and took the bus at 3:30 pm to Askvoll. There, I had a one and a half hour layover, which was made more enjoyable. The volunteers in Askvoll took me to their apartment, where we had a wonderful conversation. We then admired the beautiful sunset before embarking on an express boat in complete darkness, which took me to Krakhella. From there, we drove on a very narrow road to Hardbakke.

Solund is a municipality that consists of 1,700 islands, but only five of them are inhabited. Hardbakke is a village with about 300 residents and is therefore the administrative center. The landscape is unique to Norway, as the islands are made up of different types of rocks, called conglomerates - something that can only be found in Scotland. When we were there, the water was already very blue, but the locals told us that in the spring, when the glacial water comes down from the mountains, it is so blue that you could think you were in the Caribbean.

In the evening, we got free pizza with seafood, and then we went to bed in our room. Our room was quite an experience. It consisted of only a small bathroom, a double bed, a sofa, and a wardrobe containing the kitchen. With a bit of luck, we managed to squeeze in an extra bed, which I then slept on.

After a short night and since we didn't have to work until 2pm, Alba, Alex, and I decided to go for a hike up the local mountain or Nipa. The hike was adventurous, as Solund is almost entirely made up of rocks and parts of it were frozen. Furthermore, we had to walk on narrow paths along the edge or climb over quite large stones (sometimes we had to build a staircase out of stones). But even on the way to the summit, we were rewarded with a wonderful view, which was even topped at the top.

After the hike, we went to a market where we bought our groceries. Our work afterwards consisted of supervising the exhibition dedicated to the deep sea. Fantastic was a tablet on which you could conjure fish on the wall at the press of a button. The fish were pictures drawn by children of what they imagine in the deep sea. Out of boredom, we also created our own art, which the people liked. But my highlight was the fog machine.

After that, more work awaited us: there was a concert in the church. Our task was to film the whole thing. The concert was really good, Vivaldi was played and a short story was read, but we didn't understand it... But what was breathtaking was the performance of a teenager from Solund who performed Rag'n'Bone Man and Kaleo - and almost better than the original!
Afterwards, there would have been a party, but we were too exhausted, so I spent my evening with the Sudoku book I bought there, of course the Christmas edition.

On Sunday morning, we already had to leave our cozy room... nothing beats privacy. We helped clean up the church, pull the lights out of the water, and got a little tour of the harbor.

Since the hotel manager had a van (VW Bus) that he had to take to Rysjedalsvika and we happened to be going there too, we got the van, so we went on another trip, as we always did when we got a car. The views were simply amazing. Unfortunately, we didn't see the sunset because the mountains blocked the view, but we could still see the rays.
We just made it onto the ferry, even though we had to turn around on the ferry, which I found not so easy with a relatively large van. The last stretch to Dale was by bus, where I met many students, some of whom had already boarded the boat. I shared my entire journey there and back with one student.

Here are a few pictures already, but since there were so many pictures, I decided to post separate blog entries with just the pictures - you can browse through them in peace without the text getting in the way :)

So here's a little preview:

Waiting for the ferry in Askvoll

What was hanging in the window of a house at the harbor...

Waiting for the ferry in Krakhella