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
