Year: 2006

Today was a big driving day, Matthew and I did about 520km as we were meeting up with Karl and some of his friends to spend the next day white-water rafting.

Once we left Korpudalur in the morning we drove through the West Fjords Tunnel (1 on the map) and stopped in at �safjörður to pick up some groceries and post some postcards.

Then we hit the road! We drove past the wrecking yard at Ögur and washed our away hopes of having a look round as the signs made a good job of saying we don’t want visitors.

Then we drove round, over and across the fjord’s as we made our way to our first destination – the Museum of Icelandic Sorcery & Witchcraft in Hólmavík (2 on map). This was a pretty cool place to check out, lots of history and exhibits of the not so normal.

And we drove some more and more, as we reached the start of the North coast it was so interesting to see all the logs on the shore that come up on the beach as drift wood from the logging operations in Siberia, it can take 4/5 years between when the wood “swims” down the rivers of Siberia and when it beaches itself on the Icelandic north coast. Pretty Cool. The even cooler thing was spotting an Iceberg on the horizon. That was so rocking! It was just this big hunk of ice floating in the sea!!!

Back on the road; Matthew, Pabbi and I pulled into the hamlet of Borðeyri (4 on map) which is across the fjord from Tannstaðabakki, which is where Pabbi’s mother worked for a little while when Pabbi was a little tyke.

As we drove back up the eastern side of the fjord, Pabbi pointed out the machine gun placement up the hill from Tannstaðabakki where his father was stationed during part of WWII. After we drove some more, we reached the Youth Hostel at Ósar on the Vatnsnes Peninsula which is where Mum, Pabbi and Margaret would be staying for the night. We spent some time chilling out, talking to some of the other guests and chowing down on the whale steaks that Pabbi had cooked for dinner. yum.

As the night drew on, Matthew and I packed up our gear and reorganised the cars so that all our stuff was in the Micra and headed down the 811 to where it joins the 1 to wait for Karl and his friends to arrive so we could follow them to Bakkaflöt which is where we would spend the night before heading up the valley to raft in the morning.

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

July 4, 2005, revisiting the sights of Borgarfjörður.

We spent today showing Aunty Margaret some of the sights of Borgarfjörður which we had seen on Day 6 and also some new ones.

First up was to Glanni, which is on the Norðurá River near Bifröst, a waterfall that Pabbi had often visited whilst he was at school there.

One of the cool things about Glanni was the Salmon Ladder which has been built to help the Salmon travel up-stream. I would have liked to be there at the right time to see Salmon “climbing” the ladder.

Just a short drive up the road from Glanni and Bifröst is the farm where Pabbi’s mother and step-father used to live called Hraunsnef. It is now a hotel/hostel/camping ground affair and the owners were more than happy to talk to Pabbi about what they had done, what it was like when he was a kid and to let Pabbi take us on a walk round the place showing us places and telling us stories.

On the way back from Hraunsef, we stopped just before Bifröst at Grábrók and Grábrókarfell two cinder cones, where Margaret and Mum had a walk round whilst Pabbi, Matthew and I bummed round the car-park. On the way home from the ættarmót the day before Matthew and Karl had done a little run up the cinder cone so Matthew didn’t want to do it again and it was not something that really interested Pabbi or I.

In the afternoon we headed back to Hraunfossa and Reykholt. Whilst we were at Hraunfossa we were greeted with much nicer weather than what we had 4 days earlier. Hraunfossa is a an amazing place, it is made up of a vast number of cascades coming out of the lava over a 900m stretch before falling into the river below. The water collects in the lava and flows through it into the glacial river Hvítá below, which means that you see the white water from the glacier mixing with the blue of the rainwater. Very pretty.

After stopping in at Reykholt on the way back we made our way back to Borgarnes to spend our last night with Hjördís and making preparations for the next leg of our trip which would lead us through the West Fjörds which is where Mum met Pabbi and where Karl was born.

These are some currants that were growing in Hjördís’s garden, they were a little while off been ripe though 🙁 They looked so good!