Norway – Hvaler – a nature walk on Herføl

Herføl is another small island in the Hvaler archipelago, just to the south-west of Søndre Sandøy. Historically it marks the south-eastern limit of Norway’s border with Sweden.

It’s also home to the Ytre Hvaler National Park, most of which is in the sea and contains kelp forests and a cold-water coral reef, but it also takes in part of the island.

It’s a great place to go for a walk so one day we hopped on the ferry for the short trip over the fjord to Herføl marina.

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A few people live on the island in pretty, traditional houses.

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This kind of well cover is quite typical in Hvaler.

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First stop was another Bronze Age cairn which interestingly was directly opposite the one we went to on Søndre Sandøy. Perhaps they could signal to each other from these high points.

It must have taken a lot of people a lot of time to pile all these stones up on the top of the hill.

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We picked some wild Juniper berries here to garnish our G&Ts back home!

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From here we walked to the southern tip of the island which is the national park area. The coastal landscape is stunning.

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There are Trollgryter (pot holes) everywhere here.

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Wild flowers and plants abound.

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It’s quite a rugged landscape to walk over but very beautiful in its own special way.

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We walked up to the warning beacon to get the view.

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Here’s a video of the panorama at the top. We are literally standing on and looking over the south-east corner of Norway.

This was definitely a day trip to remember. The cobwebs were well and truly blown out!

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This is my last post on Norway for this trip, off to NYC next!

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