Every design for Tau

By the bridge at Møllefossbrua the water still runs down from Krossvatnet past the white mill that has shaped Tau for generations. The Old Tou Mill once brewed the Norwegian beer called Tou; today the mill company here makes puffed oats.

What makes Tau unusual is how long it has lived from moving things between land and sea. Excavated shipwrecks point to trade here since the early Middle Ages, and one explanation of the name points to boats hauled overland between the fjord and the lakes inland. The waterfall drove a mill that ground grain for much of Ryfylke, and when a larger mill was built with German technology, ships arrived from abroad and brought seeds of foreign plants that still grow around it. Now the Ryfylke Tunnel runs from just outside the village to Stavanger, and Comrod builds antennas in the village centre.

For anyone who grew up here, the map is Horgefjorden, the hills of Taurafjell and Borgåsen, and the mill at the heart of it all.