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 HólmavÃk (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.
