Today was a big day of driving with short stops on the side of the road to have a little poke around or fill up the petrol tanks. Whilst we only covered about 320km (which if we were doing on mainland Aus, would be 3.5hrs tops – long relativley straight roads at 100/110km/hr) for the day, because this wasn’t just Iceland roads but West Fjords roads; lots of hairpin bends, steep roads, gravel and slow speeds. It is
We bid farewell to Borgarnes, HjördÃs and her ultra cool house at 9am.
We hopped on the Ring Road and started heading “north” for a little while before we reached the turnoff to head to the West Fjords. We drove past Baula and enjoyed noticing the change in the country side as we changed lava periods and altidude.
Once we entered the West Fjords we basically kissed bitumen roads good bye and were on dirt for most of it – as the roads approached villages we would get bitumen but that was about it. To drive safely on these dirt roads means that you stop driving on the right and follow the wear patterns of where everyone else has driven as everything else is pretty loose gravel and that is not fun!
The maps show that in some cases the road follows the fjord round and in other times goes up over the fjord, that sounds all fine and dandy. However of course to gain the alitdute to go over the top of the fjord you have lots of hairpin bends and steep roads on gravel. It was all fun!!!
Just before the turn off out to Látrabjarg we reached Kleifaheiði which at about 520m presented Matthew and I with our first accessabile snow of the trip, so of course we jumped out of the car and ran over to have a scramble and a play. That was so cool!
After some more pottering around we reached our destination – BreiðavÃk, which is 12km from the Látrabjarg Cliffs and where we would be staying for the night. After settling in and having dinner we piled in the car and drove out to the cliffs. These cliffs are the most westerly point of Iceland and thus also the most western point of Europe.
The cliffs were quite possibliy one of my favourite places that we visited, there were birds everywhere and “Hello!, Check out the Puffins!”
These were all taken around the 85mm mark and as you can see from the next two photos just how close we were getting.
The puffins didn’t really do it for Matthew so he went back to the car to escape the weather (it was windy, cold and the clouds were kissing the grass) I was able to steal his gloves which if you look at in the above photo are Misfits skeleton gloves :).
The next two photos show a section of the cliffs which are 440m’ish above the Atlantic and one of the gulls I saw out there. THe puffins are birds that hang out at the top of the cliff near the grass whilst the other birds roost on the cliff face.
After we had taken enough photos we made the slow drive back to the hostel, for most of the drive back visibility was only a couple of meters in front of us due to the low hanging clouds. I had seen this sign for KeflavÃk on our way to the cliffs and decided on our way back I would have to get out and take a photo of a sign that points to a KeflavÃk that would not be the KeflavÃk that most people think of when they think of KeflavÃk as they would think of the town south of ReykjavÃk where the international airport and US Navy base is not a tiny hamlet on the West Fjords 🙂
July 1-3, 2005 ættarmót (Clan Gathering) of the decendants of Jóns Einarssonar and Jóhönnu ÞórdÃsar Jónsdóttir at Reykjaskóla, Hrútafjörði.
Jón and Jóhanna were my great, grand parents and are long since dead. Tannstaðabakki is a farm just up the road from Reykjaskóla which has been in our family for at least the last three hundred years.
It is where Pabbi lived on and off for the first 14 years of his life and it is where Amma and my grandfather, a USA Army Corporal courted.
After arriving at Reykjaskóla we were shown our rooms in the “Pall Palsson Wing” which is where those descendants of my father who were not camping stayed. This meant that we were in and out of each others rooms and running amok in the hallway.
After settling in we drove up to Tannstaðabakki where a night of food, drink and cheer was waiting, set up in the barn were trestle tables and outside a BBQ was just getting fired up. It didn’t take long after we arrived to find Toti and his troop and I set off with Silja and Birta as they showed me the things they had discovered like the dog with young litter which was getting a lot of attention from all the youngsters or the horses that they liked to pat. A little while later a joyous sound rang out when Soley arrived and we gave each other a big hug.
After Mum, Matthew and I had been introduced to a variety of people and short conversations of English were spoken, the adults grouped off and started talking in Icelandic to each other and Mum, Matthew, Soley and I headed down to the “beach” and explored, played and had our own merriment.
Once the sun had started to move away and the wind started to blow across the water we headed back up to the barn to spend the night humming along to Icelandic Folk Songs whilst the rest of the crew sang, smiled and had fun. Since Mum, Matthew and I aren’t exactly up with the whole Icelandic thing, most of the songs we stood round watching. There were some songs however which were ones we knew in English, so we could sing along to those ones. More often the case was that I buzzed about taking photos and Matthew and Mum stood round talking.
Day 8 – July 2, 2005
The night before Skúli had passed around word that if any one who was interested could come watch the milking of the cows in the morning, so of course Mum, Pabbi and I took up the offer and actually were the only ones and arrived before the milking had started so we went for a walk along the fjord as Pabbi pointed out the places he had played as a young fella and what had changed over the years.
After a while we walked back up the farm and chatted to Skúli and Guðrún as they went about the dairy business.
Once we got back to Reykjaskóla and had our breakfast where Mum was just as excited as she had been since our first trip to the grocery store at the chance to have Sour Milk on her cereal (much better than buttermilk). Mum and Pabbi headed off to chat to people I guess and Matthew probably was sitting somewhere listening to his MiniDisc player I headed off to act like an 8yr old with my nieces. Taking silly photos, playing soccer and attempting to play croquet, passing the camera round to whom ever wanted to take photos with it; Silja, Birta, Nonni(?) and who knows who else – it is not me, my camera and my life but us, my camera and our life 🙂
Around midday everyone headed up to Tannstaðabakki, where we were told about some of the things that they are now involved in with raising chickens, running school tours and the weather station etc. Karl had come up from Reykjavik by now so it was fun to have him around to join in on the fun and games. Birta had taken my camera again by now and was no longer just taking photos of people in “Team Red” but all the “Teams”.
After the tour was over we headed back to Reykjaskóla where Matthew and Karl played foxtail with one of the bags of clothes that we had left with him to bring up. Considering the things those two have played foxtail with over the years (old Christams trees etc) it was no surprise when they started this up. As we carried stuff in from his car, Matthew had now grabbed my camera and started taking some photos.
Once we were all settled we went over to the Reykir Folk Museum which is just near the school and suprise suprise Guðrún was on the door, collecting admission and handing out guides. This museum is chock full of items from the local area including quite a few items that were made by my great, great grandfather Einar Skúlason in the mid to late 1800’s.
It also includes a boat which was made in 1875 from drift wood for use a shark fishing boat in Winter and was in use until 1915, as well as a tiny boat that came in two halves for easy transport on horses, as well as a couple of reconstructed interiors of 1800’s homes.
After the museum, Matthew and I headed off to the games room with a whole troop of people from the “Pall Palsson Wing” to play air-hockey, table-tennis, mini-golf and other assorted games that we came up with what we found around.
However the sun was beckoning and after looking at the egg laying hens; Soley, Birta and Jökull decided to make a dam in the little stream that came from a hot spring up the hill a bit; I joined in, offering advice and warming my arms and legs in the warm water.
Once the dam had been built to the best of our capabilities it was time for all the kidlets and adults to be rounded up to get dressed up for the dinner. We were all on our best behaviour as we found our place card and listened to speeches that we had only a few ideas as to their content. After filling up on a wide array of foods including some very yummy brussel sprouts, I moved over to the table where Matthew was sitting and for some reason we started building little boats out of the place-cards and using wax from the tea lights to give them weight. After we had each made one or two we raced as slowly as we could down to the stream to launch our boats. Along the way we managed to draw the attention of some other kidlets and Karl and before long we had raced back up stairs to the dining room to scrounge more place-cards and tea lights to make more boats to have an all out boat race.
Before too long though the boats started to get shipwrecked on the banks and had to be decommissioned as race boats. Then we moved down to the shore where there were more kidlets playing in the late night sun; skimming rocks, playing round the whale bone, digging and having fun.
This next photo is one I really like because there is my shadow as I take the photo, Karl and Matthew in the middle finding suitable skimming rocks and Hafthor and Soley are in the background heading off home.
Once the youngest kidlets were tucked up in bed, it was time for the mice to come out and play 🙂
Skúli been a man of many talents had called up his band to play for a barn dance where we had fun drinking and watching people dancing before joining in on the chicken dance and the hokey pokey, watching Toti and Anna show off their dancing skills as they tore up the gym floor with their fancy footwork and seeing my parents the happiest I had seen them in ages dancing together on the gym floor. Once we were all tired out from dancing or watching we headed outside to stand round with a few drinks sharing stories and making jokes.
Day 9 – July 3, 2005
This was a lazy day, we packed up our gear and headed back to Reykjavik to pick up Aunty Margaret from the airport and Karl’s car before driving back to Borgarnes to spend the night with HjördÃs who had prepared a stellar lasagne for tea and to do more washing in preparation for the start of our trip round Iceland in the morning.
Today we explored the Reykjanes peninsula. Matthew stayed at Karl’s tugged up as he was not feeling the best.
A lot of the places we stopped along this trip were harbours that Pabbi had fished out of when he was on the boats. This made it similar to the trip I had taken along some of the same roads when I came through this area in 2002 with Hafþór and Pálli as like father like son, Pálli had also worked on boats that came out of the harbours of the South-West.
Our first stop was at Vogar, where we had a look at the boats in the Harbour, took a few photos.
Next up was Keflavik, where we again walked round the harbour and took some photos. This was one thing I like about Iceland in general is that they are a large fan of art in public spaces.
After leaving Keflavik, we jutted up to Garður for a poke round the harbour and then back down to Keflavik to head out to Hafnir. Our next stop after a poke round Hafnir was the “Bridge Between Two Continents” just south of Hafnaberg. This bridge is a bridge (duh) constructed over the Mid-Atlantic Ridge which is slowly and surely pulling Iceland apart. You can visit the gaps in various parts of Iceland and some have crevices or they may be like the one we visted which was a sand filled gulf.
When we were here we pottered round exploring the local flora, taking photos of tourists for them and building cairns.
Our next stop was to head out to Reykanesviti and the cliffs of Valahnúkur. This area was amazing. There were birds everywhere, and they liked to sit on the road so as we drove up a swarm of birds would just take off before our eyes.
This area was just amazing, I mean sure it was lava rock, and bits of grass but standing on the rocks that form “the beach”, hearing the birds all around you and the sound of the waves crashing on the rocks near your feet is pretty cool.
If anyone is a Sigur Rós fan or they have watched the video clip for Glósóli, you should recognise the scene in the second photo. This is the hill they go up at the end of the film clip
We then headed into GrindavÃk for lunch and to visit the Saltfisksetur Ã?slands (Salt Fish Museum). After that we followed the 427 round the coast and made a couple of stops to look at flowers. The first one is a Holtasóley (Mountatin Avens). The next photo is Mum up to her nose in orchids, I had decided to stay in the car, as I had taken my shoes off as my feet were starting to get sore and I didn’t fancy traipsing over rocks and pebbles with barefeet.
As we got closer to Kleifarvatn, we stumbled upon this cairn garden on the side of the road and we knew we had to stop and have a look round so we could tell Karl about it when we got home as he is a fan of stacking the rocks.
After stopping off at Kleifarvatn to have a look at the lake, we kept on making our way northish on the 42 and after a little while another familiar view greeted my eyes. Back in 2002 when I was going over a pretty similar road trip we were driving up this hill and there on the side of the road was this patch of grass that held a pretty good resemblance to the map of Iceland well apart from the fact it was missing the SW corner. Two and a half years later I was eager to see if it was still on that hillside and sure enough as we came over the hill there she was 🙂
Our last stop for the day was another place I had stopped on the first trip and that was at these fish drying racks. Whilst it would have been cool to see actual fillets drying the lines of fish heads was still pretty cool 🙂
After that it was time to head back into the city to start packing for the start of our big trip in the morning which would see us start our big trip round Iceland.
This was our laziest day to date. I mean we did jack all.
In the morning we must have hit up Smaralind, the local shopping center and cruised round the shops waiting for them to open, withdrawing mula from the ATM and hitting up the Hagkaup to get some lunch supplies so we weren’t always stealing Karl’s food as well as buying a bath towel for me to use in Iceland (I had intended to leave it behind when I left but it was pink) and buying The Holy Grail of chocolate bars – Prince Polo. Helen + Prince Polo = very happy 🙂
In the afternoon we went over to Tóti’s and had a blast of course.
Bringing home the photo fights, Matthew, Silja and Birta going camera crazy.
This is what happens when Birta gets too close to the lens. Hello distorted perspective 🙂
The following photos are some of the photos that Birta took when she was in charge of my camera. As soon as Birta and Silja but mainly Birta learnt how to use my camera it was almost in their hands more than mine. Not that I minded 🙂
After the four of us rough housing around in the girls bedroom we moved out onto the patio where there was much more room 🙂 The first photo is of Birta and me – duh! and the second one is a crack up beacuse Birta wanted me to give her the camera back but I said it was my turn 🙂
The evening ended with the girls giving us a concert with Tóti on the guitar. Some of the songs we recognised as they are songs we have in Australia as well, some Mum remembered from when she was living in Iceland and it was just the perfect ending to a fun afternoon.
That was our day. Just like I said a pretty non-adventurous day. 🙂
The previous night before going to sleep we had pulled all the blinds down in the living area because it would take a while to get used to the idea of 24hr daylight. I had no problem with getting used to the reverse of say 6 or 7 hrs of light when I was there in Winter because then you still had a defined night and a defined day but when you just have various stages of daylight for 24hrs, that is pretty interesting.
Understandably ReykjavÃk and Iceland in general has changed since my parents were left in 1980, you know new roads are put up; new buildings are built all the usual things that happens with time.
For Pabbi however this was the cause of utter confusion. You see my father and a map, my father and memory of streets yeah they aren’t a real happy equation. You ask my father to go anywhere in Brisbane even which he hasn’t been to 10000 times before, yeah you are looking at chaos.
So here we are, we have just picked up a rental car and we are following Tóti back to Karl’s place to pick up Matthew. All we have to do is go back the way we came and Tóti would be just ahead of us in the traffic anyway. Dude, total chaos. I think we can just leave it there. Matthew, Karl and I all got our navigation skills from our mother, take me somewhere once and that is pretty much all I need. This can be a point of conflict especially when we start provoking each other.
Anyway we get back to Karl’s and pick up Matthew who had wisely decided not to come with us to get the rental car. We then head off to the ReykjavÃk Cemetery to visit the grave of our Amma, her sister (our great-aunt) and our brother. This cemetery was unlike anything I had ever seen before. It wasn’t at all like the one we live near and I walk past daily nor was it like the ones I saw in the town I lived in when in Germany. It was almost like an open forest which was littered with graves each lovingly tendered. I met my Amma once when I was 3 and spoke to her a couple of times on the phone since then. It is is an interesting thing having never really gotten to kn ow her but still knowing her very much through how my parents talked of her or the cards she would send each Christmas with Gleðileg Jól on the front and a parcel of dried fish if were lucky. We always knew was inside the parcel before we had opened it as it would have been opened by Customs and then closed up with all sorts of stickers saying “This parcel has passed customs”
After the cemetery we headed into downtown to have a stroll round and to show Mum, Pabbi and Matthew the ultra cool 3d scale relief map of Iceland in the ReykjavÃk City Hall. Hafþór and Sigga had brought me to see the map when I was in Iceland in 2002 so I knew I had to bring the others to see it because it really is ultra cool!
After we had poured over the map and further planned our travels we headed out for a walk round the area. Matthew and I lagged behind the “grown-ups” and he was even in a silly enough mood to tell me to take this photo of him with this wall of graffiti.
Just across the street from where the photo of Matthew was taken is Austurvöllur and a couple of days before we had arrived an utterly amazing fantastic photography display by Ragnar Axelsson from his book Faces of the North had been installed in the square. This is an utterly amazing document of life in Iceland, Greenland and the Faroe Islands.
In the gardens bordering the square there was one thing that left me bemused and one thing that made me smile.
The first was Ornamental Kale in the gardens, this really had me stumped as I could not figure out why on earth there were cabbages planted in the garden bed, then Mum told me that they were designed for eating. The second was this bed of Pansies; a flower that very much reminds me of Iceland because a) you see it everywhere and b) it was one of Amma’s favourite flowers.
Cue some more cruising round the old town and then we were off to Tóti’s house to meet up with his family, look at photos, chat, laugh and giving me some time to be a 7 year old again. It was just so great seeing his family again, so great.
I got roped into playing a game of bingo with the girls and to hell with the language barrier it still worked out fine. When the one of the girls was spinning the dial the other would make sure that I put my piece on the right tile and when I was spinning the dial I would just make the noise or movements of the animal. It was a barrel of fun.
After hanging out at Tóti’s we made our way home via Hafþór’s where we all got to meet the ultra cute little DanÃel Smári in all his 23mth glory for the first time, Matthew and Mum got to meet Sigga and Sóley as well for the first time and I got to hang out Sóley who is my “twin” and happens to be my niece and a few years younger than me…
