Yesterday we came to Bolærene, that's three islands in the outer Oslo fjord, at the west side. All three islands were for roughly one hundred years owned and used by the military; it was turned over to the public in 2005 IIRC. The military still holds the Rauer island on the east side of the fjord. Around WWI there was established a coastal defence battery/fortress here. During the latest years this island has been used mostly as a storage; there are great underground storage rooms and quays designed for big ships to land. I wonder if the storage rooms are used for anything today. The nature has de-facto been quite protected on those islands since it's been a restricted area, today national park regulations apply to it.
When we arrived yesterday, the east side of the straight (Mellom Bolærene) looked much more tempting as it was in the sun, the west side was in the shade. However, I wanted to stay in the harbour this time and there wasn't any space at the east side.
The harbour was gratis, one could optionally pay for electricity (but very few sockets), a shower, and food from the inn.
I'm happy I got the kids out of the boat ... first my 7yrs old boy, later the daughter followed (our 14yrs old denied joining at all, he's at home playing computer games). We did some grilling, later we did something I haven't done for a looong time ... geocaching! There was a sign nearby the inn encouraging geocaching.
On my previous post I got a comment ... "why are all of the boats white"? I considered Inger here to be a non-white boat, though when looking at the photo ... hm, actually the hull is white. My boat is on the end, clearly not white.
Inger, from her stern side
The east side, and boats lying for anchor as well
One of the storage halls. Somewhere in this area there should be a "micro" geocache, like film roll size or smaller, hidden in a crevice. That's slightly non-trivial to find. Now I remember (one of the reasons) I stopped doing geocaching. We gave up after a while.
We started climbing a bit, going to search for the next cache.
It's getting quite late, so not the best conditions for taking sharp pictures. Some concrete structures, remains from the coastal defence battery.
The kids (and the father) is enjoying a walk/run in the forest
This trail was marked with blue, so the kids quickly made it into a game finding the next marker.
Some more concrete structures ... a chimney from the storages below?
Even a staircase, in the middle of nowhere ...
Next morning, I'm rewarded for choosing the west side - morning sun! It's 05:38 as the sun is just climbing up from behind the neighbour island, I woke up without alarm clock around 05, rest of the family is of course fast asleep.
Building 231 ... we were grilling by those tables yesterday.
Building 228
"Explosive area - no smoking!". Also, "use a helmet".
I had expected it to be deeper. Maybe there is a door behind those garbage bins?
Some of those buildings can be rented
"Open Café" ... at 05:43 in the morning? I don't believe! But it was open yesterday.
The door itself doesn't look that charming, old military building
Building 202
And 232
Going further, I found a beach. There were also lots of geese with very small children that got disturbed and swam away as I came. Hundred metres more, and some Canada geese flew up and away, apparently without children. And one guy fishing.
Facilities for campers - but this water tap is apparently still in winter mode.
Some ruins
On the information sign, it says that there was a building there made by a family settling on the island in 1790. It was expropriated by the military in the early 1900s, and demolished by the military in 2002 ... shortly before the military abandoned the island. What a shame!
There were a couple of toilets here for campers as well
There was another information post, tenting was not allowed on the left side of the sticks to protect the flowers.
Three tents. Ah, I should have done a close-up of the third tent, it was very small and with this relatively big child buggy outside. According to the size of the tent, one would think only the child would fit in it, but I suppose the child wasn't alone there :-) The towel on the picture below clearly belonged to those campers.
Coming down here, I scared up some kind of mammal in the bushes. I have no idea what it was, I didn't see it, only heard it, sounded like a big heavy thing with four legs.
This beach doesn't look as inviting as the other one.
One single lonely flower growing directly from the rock ...
... or perhaps it wasn't so lonely, here are more of them
View towards civilization, Tønsberg area
I decided to head back
Now the people at the other side of the straight is in the shadow ... though, hard to see on this photo. The boats lying by anchor has sunlight both in the evening and morning.
While the campers have quite primitive toilets, we do have a water toilet.
The two quays are a bit primitive ... one small concrete pier for loading/unloading a bigger ship, and two wooden support structures at both sides of the quay. Here a sailing boat has been mooring up to one of those support constructions. They have no dhingy and no way to get in land except swimming ... I don't quite see the point, could as well have been lying by anchor.
It's very humid this morning.
Camera, loudspeaker, and some other equipment ... I wonder what parts are operative here and what is not. One would believe some of the equipment here to be cell phone radio relays, but apparently not ... very poor coverage here indeed.
All photos available in better resolution on IPFS QmNVpZ6S9mVCta4HyKpXR73NobcdquzRUn5LuBiJK8pEf4. License: CC BY-SA 4.0
the images are crashed, can't see anything 😑
There is anothet option, you can view them in higher resolution, the link is provided below.
these images are having high resolutions, i have problem with my Internet services, the images take too much time to get loaded
Ooo, got it
Since they are available from https://ipfs.io/ it's steemit that is slow fetching and caching all the photos.
Maybe a different browser may help like Uc browser or Opera
Ah, I have problems with my internet connection, try again in some few minutes
sure
Halv an hour has passed, and still less than half of the images are available :-(
Ah so sometimes its not the users html that was wrong to not load the pic?
Fantastic photos! It look very idyllic. I really miss sailing. When I was a kid I used to sail (not me technically though) a lot in the 'Oslofjord'. I have considered getting a sailboat at adult age. My father even says he can give me a berth. Do you have some recommendation about what kind of boats to look into (affordable and easy to sail)?
Of course, what to look for depends quite much on personal preferences and usage pattern.
At one point I was running a wiki http://www.baatwiki.no with lots of useful tip, also including the purchasing process - unfortunately I had to shut it down as I didn't have the capacity to maintain it. I miss it, it was actually becoming a useful reference for me even though I wrote most of the articles myself. :-)
I'd say, if buying a second hand boat there are some things that are of particular importance, like:
Someone would say that it's important to lift the boat up from the water and check how it looks on the underside, I've never done that myself.
Ok. Thanks for all advice! Guess I have something to look into now. I am in no hurry, but I will start and educate myself:)
No specific recommendation, just a general one: if you're just half as clumsy as me, I would strongly recommend to start with a cheap, small boat :-)
According to the size of the tent, one would think only the child would fit in it, but I suppose the child wasn't alone there :-)
Maybe the child was squeezed. Hahhaha... Or someone used his belly as a pillow, looks like you have enjoyed a lot.
there are great underground storage rooms
What do they store in these rooms?
If I'd known, I couldn't tell you ... military secret :D
Military secret, then we shouldn't talk about it.
So many pictures and so many crashes...I wanted to get a clearer picture of your boat. Tried that link also, but it didn't fully load them. Probably internet speed is weak in the morning.
Next time hope to more lucky.
should be available now at least, try a full refresh (ctrl-shift-r in quite some browsers).
Done that. Now that I could see them all I realized how many there are...and that you got your finger again pictured.
Done that also with some supposedly great pictures. I know how it feels.
The rest of them with the right sun light are pretty sleek and the area seems quiet and nice to spend a weekend there.
I went a bit wild. Nice place, hope to get back again another time :-)
Actually, it was on purpose, as otherwise the sun would ruin that photo.
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Great post @tobixen Followed you!
There is a bunch of photos you have used in your post,
Some are visible but some are not visible.
Waiting for them to be visible.
should be available now at least, try a full refresh (ctrl-shift-r in quite some browsers).
yes, now i can see them, thank you.
Lively pictures mate. Hope you are enjoying your stay here
This is some fun time exploration
Thanks for including the pictures, the give proper insight to the description. Awesome pictures between
cool a have been on a camping trip ones to bolerne but ist most be 8 years or something like it. a was there whit a big group 20+ me and a few more was camping outside a had a hammock in the Forrest it was nice not so cramped dont remember exactly on the island but we rented a big building. its super nice down there. and a love to explore old bunkers.
nice place the take the kids :)