Gildrehola

Halsnøy

Hadde ikkje Hardangerfjordbreen mot slutten av istida rykt fram over fjordbotnen, ville Halsnøy ikkje eksistert som éi øy, men som mange småøyar. Breen skuva framfor seg så mykje leire frå havbotnen at Brattåsen, Toftåsen, Landåsen og Svartaberg vart samla i eitt landområde.

Langhaugane

Skorpo

Skorpo - Polished by glaciers and meltwater

Ølve

Ølve has a special soil type. Here one finds an extra hard clay soil. This is especially noticed by those who work with excavating for building foundations and the like. Often it is necessary to use especially big digging machines and sometimes even dynamite in order to break up the compact masses. The reason for this is the growth of the glaciers toward the end of the Ice Age: The clay, that was first deposited in front of the glacier, came under great pressure when the glacier later grew and slid out over the clay.

Herand- geologi

Jonstein

When high school student Arne Handegard collected plants for a herbarium in 1962, he didn’t know what kind of rarity he had pressed into his notebook. 30 years later he attended a botanical lecture, where a picture was shown of a plant he recognized: “Norwegian Sagebrush, which in Norway is only found in a large area of Dovre and in Trollheimen, and in a little area in Ry county”. Arne Handegard raised his hand: “That plant grows on Mt. Jonstein in Jondal”.

Svåsand

Down by the fjord at Svåsand, close to the main highway, there is a long row of boathouses, one of the well-preserved, older boathouse locations along the Hardanger fjord. It is the farms at Svåsand that have their boathouses here, four main farms with origins far back in time.

Fitjar- potatoes

The deep agricultural soils in Fitjar are found especially in the area between Lake Storavatnet and Breivika. The many stonewalls in the area reflect that the earth probably was full of stones and stone blocks. The stones that couldn't be dug out had also a function: they stored heat that helped to grow potatoes.

Grønafjellet

Mountain plants with their beautiful, colourful flowers are common in high altitude areas in Norway. On the coast there are not so many of them. But, here and there one nonetheless finds mountain plants, and this makes some coastal mountainsides a little bit different. Perhaps the growth on these mountainsides gives us a little glimpse of a distant past?