Iceland Megatrip 2005 – Day 12

July 6, 2005 more exploring of the West Fjords.

Below is the map of the day with our 7 stops.

1. Mum, Margaret and Pabbi had gone back out to the bird cliffs in the morning to have a second look but there was no where near as many as we had seen the night before.

Once we had reached the turn off down to Breiðavík, we stopped the car and I took the photo below.

2. As we drove over the pass and into the Bíldudalur valley, we were greeted by two sights, one pleasant and one just gorgeous. The first was this decaying hut on the western side of the valley. The second was looking towards the north east to the slopes of the mountains coming down to greet the sea. This was a sight I would not tire of.

We drove into Bíldudalur and had a poke round and Pabbi told how it had changed in the 26yrs odd years since he had last been there.

3. Road Signs
Not really much to this but it was the first sign we saw that said how many km’s to Þingeyri and I thought that was pretty cool

4. Emergency Shelter on Dynjandsheidi.
The West Fjords are a pretty a rugged area of Iceland and are one of the least populated areas with about 8000 people living there out of a total population of round 297,000. Due to the nature of the region we passed many emergency shelters in the West Fjords which can provide a safe haven for travellers in winter.

This shelter was one of the ones that my father helped to build back in the day when he was living in the area.

5. Dynjandi or Fjallfoss
Such a beautiful and dramatic waterfall! The falls drop about 100m in a series of falls all of which have their own name.

6. Hrafnseyri.
Here we visited the Jón Sigurðsson Museum and a traditional Icelandic life Museum. Jón Sigurðsson was at the forefront of the fight for Icelandic Independeance and now the Icelandic National Day is celebrated on his birthday – June 17.

7. Auðkúla.
My family relations on my father’s side are a bit confusing but in short Auðkúla is the family farm of my dad’s ex-wife and when we started to plan our trip and where we would go, Pabbi was quickly on the phone to his ex-brother-in-law to see if we could spend the night, which was perfectly fine of course. However, somewhere along the way they got the dates mixed up and he was away when we arrived and was not coming home until the next day, we were lucky however that his daughter Dáðina (?) was home and was able to play hostess.

Auðkúla was a very beautiful place with the outlooks to the fjord from one side of the house and mountain views from the other side 🙂 We were given a tour of the farm from the chickens to the sheep and most importantly the Eider Ducks. As a matter of fact we actually own an Eider Down Sæng (doona) that is filled with down collected at Auðkúla