Langeøya

At Lan­geøya, the name (in Norwegian/German) might well be descrip­ti­ve, indi­ca­ting „Long Island“: it is no more than 50-60 met­res wide in seve­ral places, but about six kilo­me­t­res long. But the name does not descri­be the shape (then, in cor­rect Nor­we­gi­an, it should be Lan­gøya, not Lan­geøya), the island is rather named after a Ger­man 19th cen­tu­ry geo­grapher, just as with the neigh­bou­ring islands. Tog­e­ther, they form the small archi­pe­la­go of the Bas­tianøya­ne, which is situa­ted in the sou­thern Hin­lo­pen Strait.

Lan­geøya and Kie­per­tøya, a bit fur­ther to the sou­the­ast, are the two lar­gest islands of the Bas­tianøya­ne. Bey­ond the­se two, only Pescheløya is worth men­tio­ning; the other islands are hard­ly more than sker­ries and rocks.

Lan­geøya – Pano 1

Regar­ding Lan­geøya (and Kie­per­tøya, which is simi­lar), it is the shape that it real­ly striking: it is made up of a series of five rocky hills which are bet­ween 37 and 54 met­res high and con­nec­ted by nar­row, low-lying land bridges. Geo­lo­gi­cal­ly spea­king, Lan­geøya con­sists of dole­ri­te, a basalt-like rock. The low-lying land bridges have some rocky bea­ches with some drift­wood (and the ine­vi­ta­ble mari­ne pla­s­tic lit­ter).

Lan­geøya – Pano 2

Vege­ta­ti­on is most­ly rest­ric­ted to lichens. The­re is no „sta­tio­na­ry“ wild­life other than some bree­ding birds such as arc­tic terns and – at a litt­le pond – red-throa­ted divers. But it is not unu­su­al to see one or seve­ral wal­rus swim­ming around in this neigh­bour­hood, and the­re is cer­tain­ly a polar bear roa­ming bet­ween the rocky hills some­whe­re on the­se islands. The­re was an acci­dent with a polar bear with lethal out­co­me on neigh­bou­ring Kie­per­tøya – so be careful if you ever get here.