Gullvegen is in the heart of a UNESCO Geopark and a central player, with its 2 geo-sites at Lykling and the farm.
In Sunnhordland you are always close to a place where rocks, landscapes and exhibitions offer both views and insight. You are invited to discover the soul of Sunnhordland through our nature and culture. But tread carefully, leave no trace, shop locally and be prepared for our wild western weather.
Location 13: The gold mines at Lykling
"It's gold in them hills" - Engineer Plummer, during test blasting of the rock at Lykling in 1882
Norway's Klondike
In 1862, a pyrite miner discovered sparkling traces of gold in quartz veins that wound through the rocky coastal landscape at Lykling. A few decades later, in the 1880s, English miners and investors came here to build what would become Norway's largest gold mine. Over the course of just over 25 years, about 200 kilograms (most likely at least several hundred more kilograms!) of gold were extracted – before mining ceased and the last mine was closed in 1910.
Now the area is protected as a cultural monument. Here you can walk between old mine openings, see the remains of tip mounds and imagine the sound of picks and spades from the time when the dream of gold lured people here from far and wide.
Location 12: Urda - Kleberstein Brot
"Norway's finest limestone quarry" Geologist Øystein Jansen
The soapstone that built the medieval churches in the West
Along the rock face at Urda you will find traces of hundreds of years of hard work. Here, soft, gray soapstone was carved and shaped into perfect blocks – ashlars – that found their way to Moster Church and most of the churches and monasteries in Bergen before the year 1160.
After many decades of exploitation, the resource ran out and the quarry fell silent. But if you walk here today, you can still see how the soapstone meets the harder serpentinite, and imagine the sound of chisels on stone. Between the quarry and the road lie small piles of waste – silent witnesses to once lively activity.
Urda was not just a stone supplier; it was a building block for an entire era, perhaps under the king's ownership.