DAY 38 - A DAY IN MANDAL AND SURROUNDS - Tuesday 31st May, 2022

We were in for a bit of a treat this morning when we spied a woodpecker in the tree outside out bedroom window.  This was a first for us, as we had never seen a woodpecker before never lone in the wild.  The camera came out and I had a great time happily snapping this little tree as he pecked away on the bark...  He was there for quite a while.  We were able to how him to the boys as well...  Although these birds live in a lot of countries, they do not live in Australia so this really was a treat for us...

Woodpecker in the wild in Norway

We were pretty thrilled to a woodpecker in the wild...

 We have been having a leisurely start to the day, because our surroundings are so lovely that we just enjoy being home in the peace and quiet with just the running water of the river as our back drop.  Most mornings we have a cuppa on our deck before heading off to do any exploring.  It is also where we try and plan our day.

The river Audna runs right past our AirBnB..

Our Norwegian hideaway on the banks of the River Audna

Over morning tea we made our plans for the day.  As the boys had been into Mandal and us girls hadn't, we decided to take a drive in there to explore the city a little more.  Pete and Steve found it quite pretty with a fair bit to see and thought we might all enjoy it...  We didn't bother packing a picnic lunch today as we felt that we would be able to find somewhere to have lunch in town...

 The town of Mandal, is idyllically  situated along the southern Norwegian coast and  is the epitome of the southern Norwegian summer with it's white painted wooden house, typical of southern Norway.  Charming narrow streets and the river in the midst of town, and then beaches, forest and nature just outside of the centre of town, it is an ideal place to spend your summer holidays.  The town also build on it's rich history of salmon fishing, shipping, artists and the start of the Norwegian oil adventure...

Typical style of Norwegian home...

Views of the city centre from the lookout..

The drive in was picturesque and our first stop was the lookout at Uranienborg.  This is situated right in the heart of Mandal.  We took the walk up to the lookout.  It’s a wonderful and popular viewpoint.  The name Uranienborg was given to the first "kikkerthus" (binoculars house) that was built here in 1862, as a memorial of the Russian ship 'Ingermanland', wrecked at the coast in 1842. From here you can see all the way to Ryvingen - Norway's southernmost lighthouse, the ships passing far out to the sea, the beaches, the town centre, the beautiful library building and more.

The lookout at Uranienborg

The views up here were quite spectacular.  It was a little bit of a hike up the hill but the views did make it worthwhile.  The weather wasn't the best, it was quite overcast and there looked to be a little bit of rain coming, but we still set up.  We figured that there was shelter at the top in the form of the "kikkerthus" (binoculars house) if the rain did come... What we did not factor into it though was that there could be other folk up there sheltering from the rain as well.

Spectacular views overlooking the town and out to sea

Views overlooking the city of Mandal

Some beautiful homes overlooking the river

"Buen" Cultural Centre

The view also took in the islands just off the coast

 

We had to hurry a little as a shower of rain did come over and we ended up squeezing into the binocular house with a group of elderly folk who were out on a social outing.  They were very friendly and offered to share their buns with us.  Theo thought this was pretty good.

Sheltering from the rain

The wonderful views

Lots and lots of white wooden houses...

Once the rain stopped we took our time wandering back to the car, enjoying the beautiful countryside

 

 

We took our time heading back down to the car.  The walk was lovely, wild spring flowers out everywhere and the views as we walked down hill were just stunning.  The fact that it had just rained also added a richness to the earth around us that just had us wanting to savour  it all and let our senses enjoy the surroundings...

The walk back to the car was beautiful...

 

Beautiful foliage

 

  

A rather unusual house - even has a swimming pool.. Wonder how often they can use it...

When we got back to our car, we realized that although we had locked the car we had left the sunroof open.  This wasn't the first time we had been out locked our car and walked away to come back and find that the roof had been left open, only this time there was a bit of a problem with the car seats all being wet because of the deluge of rain we had just had.  If we had been home in Australia in one of our cars it wouldn't have been a problem either because Steve always carries a couple of old towels in the car we could have wiped it up with but now here, we were in for wet butts as we had no way or wiping them dry. Drat.....

From here we headed back into the main part of Mandal into "Gågada", the pedestrian zone,  which runs through the middle of the town centre, where we stopped for lunch.   This pedestrian mall is a treasure trove for shoppers with lots of lovely little niche shop all filled with treasures just waiting to be photographed in my case.  WE did stumble across a really neat little toy shop where we could have been easily tempted but resisted the urge...

This was also where Steve finally found an ATM when they had visited earlier.  I was also suitably surprised to see a Spec Savers in Norway as this is who we shop with back home for our glasses.  We hadn't seen any in Denmark so this was a bit of a surprise.

Spec Savers in Norway

Finally found an ATM

Some pretty nice little Cafes.

"Gågada", the pedestrian zone

The boys enjoy a play in "Gågada"

In the pedestrian mall we came across this bust of Adolph Tidemand, who was a noted Norwegian romantic nationalism painter.  He was born in August 1814 and lived until August 1876...  This artist was born in Mandal, the son of a customs inspector.  As a youngster he received  private art lessons in his home town and his talent was soon recognized.  He then was enrolled in an art school in Christiania, moving to Copenhagen in the period from 1832 to 1837....  He then went on to study in other countries.  

Today Adolph Tidemand is best known for his depiction of Norwegian farm and culture and is counted among the first Norwegian historic painters.

Once Pete was sussing out somewhere to eat, I wandered down to the river bank with Steve to take a few photos of some of the sculpture work on the riverbank.

Boat moorings on the river.  As we have marked parking here in Australia when you want to head into town, in Mandal, for those travelling by boat to do their hopping there is mooring bays to park your boat whilst you shop.  Such a different concept to what we are used to...

Buen Cultural Centre in Mandal

The pride and joy of Mandal is their "Buen"cultural centre which is shaped like a green blanket that elevates and integrate the surrounding landscape and contributes to an attractive new part of the town that was previously an anonymous industrial area.   The glass facade opens up and exposes the lobby to the river bank, allowing ample daylight into the building.  The architecture adjusts in colour, scale and proportion to the character filled, picturesque wooden houses by the river's edge...

The river edge in Mandal

Mandal today is a city with everything close.  Just 10 minutes walking distance from the city centre is the well-know beach Sjøsanden, surrounded by Furulunden,  a large pine forest with beautiful hiking trails, viewing points, many small beaches and the memories of a paraffin oil factory. Mandal is also considered a concert city, with about 300 concerts during the year. One of the big happenings is the Seafood Festival, or “Skalldyrfestivalen”, that ALWAYS takes place on the second week of August.

"Mandalitten" by Sigurd Nome, 1965

By the time we had finished taking our photos Pete had found a place where we could order a big family pizza that would feed us all, and where they offered the kids a lolly pop much to the delight of the boys..

Theo was pretty happy to get some "slicke"

Coke no sugar, Norwegian style

Family pizza

It was pretty big...

Maria ordered a kebab which would also have fed a few of us...

After lunch Pete and Maria joined us as we took another walk along the river to the start or the Mall and then we had a nice wander down it checking out the many lovely shops and enjoying an afternoon treat...

The rain we had a little earlier had left some puddles that the boys enjoyed playing in.  Plenty of feet stomping and it was a little hard to draw them away from it...

The street was narrow

Plenty of fresh produce and some fruits we hadn't seen before

Maria and I enjoyed checking out some of the clothing stalls...

After walking through the pedestrian mall we headed further down the street towards the beach and checked out some of the parklands.

Some unusual trees

From here we headed for our car.  Pete and Maria decided to head home with the boys whilst Steve and I decided to do a little more exploring.  We decided to go check out the beautiful Furulunden, a large nature ark surrounded by over two kilometres of picturesque beaches.  It is billed as the perfect place for kids with playgrounds both between the trees and the water.  There is also an extensive network of path and promenades suitable also for those in wheelchairs.

RVing... Norwegian style...

We ended up parking at Sjøsanden beach, which is quite shelted from the weather and wind, regardle of which way the wind is blowing...  

With it's 800m long sandy beach, Sjøsanden is perhaps one of Norway's most famous beaches.  This beach is located in the Furulunden nature park and is one of several of the great beaches and rocky outcrops in this nature park...

Sjøsanden Beach

Lovely white swans in the northern hemisphere

Beautiful Furulunden..

On the beachfront was this monument to Toralf Westermoen.    He was a pioneer for the development of high speed craft in Norway.  On his own initiative, Westermoen started development of a high speed motor torpedo vessel early in the 1950s.  The prototype, "Nasty"was the start of the Tjeld class patrol boat that was put into production in 1957.  The top speed was around 45 knots.

The Nasty/Tjeld class was in continuous production until 1970, and in addition to sales to the Norwegian navy, it was exported to Germany, Greece, Turkey and the United States.  

Toralf Westermoen was CEO in the various companies until 1969 when he was elected to the Norwegian parliament where he served until 1981.

From Furulunden, we decided to do a little more exploring.  We weren't sure where we were going, we were just following the road ahead of us, traveling down country roads.  Everywhere we went the scenery wa beautiful.  We did turn off at when we came to a big quarry which seemed to have a concrete business also.  There are a lot of roadworks happening in this area at the moment...

The countryside was beautiful

Typical Norwegian scenery with homes at the foot of the mountains on the waters edge...

So picturesque..

The seagulls in Norway are massive birds - much bigger than in Australia

This was quite typical of Norway, houses built on sheer rock in the middle of water.  No lawns just sheer rock.  It absolutely fascinates both Steve and I...

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We often came across seats near beautiful scenery where folk could just sit and relax and take it all in...

Such a beautiful beautiful country....

We came across quite a few homes that had stacks of pots stored and Steve was quite interested in them.  Slightly different to what we would have at home...  He was keen to find out what sort of crabs they caught in them.  It was a pity there was no one around to ask, but he still wanted photos of them...

Lots of Norwegian pots...

The other thing that fascinated us was the storeage of all their timber for heating.  We had seen something similiar in Tassie when we were down there but not on the scale that we saw it in Norway. 

This whole barn was filled with firewood...

A pretty typical Norwegian sight.  So so pretty..

We followed the coast as we headed back towards Mandal.  The views out to sea were equally stunning..

We drove past out house on the rock again, and I had to photograph it again... I mean to actually build a House on solid rock and live in the middle of the water.  The only to get home is by boat.  All very different and fascintating for us... 

By now it was closer to 6pm and we decided that it was time to head home as we try and have an earlier dinner for the boys.  We decided to take a different road home that the one we had travelled in on this morning.

Country roads cut through the rock...

Tunnels everywhere

More tunnels

Everywhere you look the scenery is magnificent.  We can't get enough of it...

Rocks, Water, Mountains and fir trees everywhere...

Wildflowers growing everywhere along the sides of the road...

Heading home we came across the statue of Peder Claussøn Friis, who was a Norwegian clergyman, author and historian. He is most associated with his translation of Snorre Sturlessøns Norske Kongers Chronica. Peder Claussen Friis grew up in Audnedal in the county of Vest-Agder, Norway.

Green green countryside with wildflowers growing everywhere

Our day ended when we got back to Tryland and decided to explore and check out the bridge that leads us to home.  It was a pretty old arched bridge and was the backdrop for beautiful scenery around the Audna River..

Another lovely day in Paradise has ended.  The days already are flying by too quickly... Tomorrow we are off to visit a Salmon Farm and do a little more sightseeing...