Thursday 20th - Monday 31st July 2017
This time Lucy didn't need to watch the ship's progress on the live TV feed as we had one of the few cabins facing the front of the boat, so she sat up all night as she sailed into the sunset heading for Iceland.
Seyðisfjörður - Austerland
We docked in Seyðisfjórður in Austerland (East Iceland) at 9.30 am and were greeted by clear blue skies and snow-capped mountains. Seyðifjörður is a small town with around 700 inhabitants and is situated at the end of a 20 km fijord of the same name. It is surrounded by mountains and regarded by many as the most picturesque town in Iceland, both for its location and for the well preserved wooden buildings. For this reason it is also an artists town and many have gathered here over the years including the Skaftfell Group, who founded the Skaftfell Centre for Visual Arts. I have been so lucky on this trip to see the work by artists from so many different of schools of art. The next photo is the Tónlistarskóli (the music school) which is next door to where I am staying.
The check-in time for my room wasn't until 5pm but I sent an email saying that I had arrived, and had a reply to say I could go straight there. So I got settled in and arranged for them to take out one of the beds while I was out and replace it with a sofa. It also has a well equipped kitchenette and shower room and plenty of space for my bike.
So once again I walked around the town, went to the Tourist Information Centre for maps etc and planned the first week of my visit. My plan had always been to leave my bike near the ferry and back-pack around Iceland and I intended to leave after a couple of days and head towards Reykjavík about 400 miles away on the West Coast. But for numerous reasons I decided to stay and explore Austerland for a week or so by bus and on foot. There was an Intermational Arts Festival that week and a Blacksmith's Festival the following weekend which looked very interesting. Also, something that I haven't told many people, I fell over after I had been on the boat trip to the Vestmanna Cliffs. It was totally my fault, I was thinking about the woman who had been sick on the boat and not looking where I was going and I tripped over a rock and crashed my chest into it, badly hurting my ribs. At the time I thought it was the end of my journey, I could hardly move and I started thinking about how I was going to get home, whether to fly, or to get the ferry back to Denmark and then catch trains to the Hook of Holland. But luckily nothing was badly broken, and I have cracked ribs several times before and just needed to rest and take it easy. And of course Dr Lucy came to the rescue and looked after me.
She managed to get some pain killers, paracetamol, from the pharmacy in Tórshavn. It cost nearly £10 for 20 tablets and the pharmacist keeps them locked away. Lucy had to answer a lot of questions before she was given them. What and who were they for? Had I taken them before etc. She was also given a sheet listing side effects. Good job she can read Faroese.
A few facts
Iceland is roughly the same size as England and Wales but has a population of only 332,000 of whom two thirds live in Reykjavík. Only 20% of the country is able to sustain human habitation around the perimeter. There is almost no pollution so everything is clean and fresh and Icelanders are proud of the fact that you can drink the water from every stream and non-glacial river. The coastline of Austerland is indented by fjords and the valleys of the rivers that run into them are lined by steep mountains. There are hundreds of waterfalls tumbling down the mountainsides and I have done several hikes following yellow markers and cairns along river valleys and climbed up to some of the waterfalls.
LungA (International Art Festival)
When I arrived in Seyðisfjörður it was swarming with students and the annual, week-long Art (art, textiles, music and drama) Festival aimed at students had doubled the population for the week.
On Saturday they displayed their work and put on concerts and performances. I went to a few including 'Spirit and Matter' where they set fire to large installations and talked about influences on relationships. Don't think I have described this very well, but it was thought provoking and entertaining.
A few more facts
Iceland is not a member of the EU but is a member of the European Free Trade Association along with Norway, Liechtenstein and Switzerland. They operate in parallel with the EU and participate in the single market. Iceland is also part of the EEA (Economic Area) as a non voting country. They have to allow free movement, follow EU rules including new ones, pay into the budget, and accept European Court of Justice rulings.
The currency is the Islandic Krónur and there are approximately 136 ISK to the pound. It takes a while to get your head around spending thousands of krónur on fairly basic things. A beer in a cafe or bar costs between 1,000 and 1,500 ISK
Blaakirkjan - The Blue Church
The landscape is is so varied that all the scenes in the film, 'The Secret Life of Walter Mitty', were filmed in Iceland including those that were supposed to be in Afghanistan, Greenland and the Himalayas. Seyðisfjörður was the location used for the skateboarding sequences and the Blue Church featured in the film.
Blacksmith for the day
Every year there is a festival at the Tækniminjassafin (Technical Museum) and they put on demonstrations and run courses. This year it coincided with my birthday and I enrolled on the Nánskeið Smiðjuhátið (blacksmithing course) using a viking style forge at the museum. They also ran courses in photography, book binding, metal casting and knife making.
Lucy was in her element and was much better at it than I was and she made some very fine nails. My hook was a bit pathetic, and she immediately claimed it as a viking shepherd's crook.
There were six of us on the course including one Icelandic guy who had driven 400 miles to participate, two Swedes, two Germans and me. It was great fun and I learnt a lot about how metal behaves when it is heated ansd hammered. The teacher taught in Icelandic, some German and a little English, so at times I had to guess what to do. Of course Lucy was fine as she has mastered Icelandic and speaks it fluently.
Tvísöngur
Another interesting day was spent walking up to the Tvísöngur, a domed sound sculpture high up on the mountainside. There are five interconnected concrete domes each having a resonance that corresponds to a tone in the Icelandic music tradition of five-tone harmony.
With my hearing this was all lost on me, but Lucy sang an Icelandic folk song that she had learnt for the occasion and assured me that it worked perfectly.
Bike Rides
I have also been for some bike rides, at first fairly gentle ones because of my ribs, but increased the distance as they continued to improve. In fact, as I was writing this, I realised that they haven't troubled me once today. The weather for my first five days in Iceland was incredible, blue skies without a cloud to be seen, although it is now much greyer and damper with one or two days of rain.
One day I cycled along the edge of the fjord until the road surface became too bad for my road tyres, so I stopped and sat for a while watching some puffins. It was so beautiful and peaceful until the occasional 4x4 came by creating a dust storm.
Tomorrow I am going to leave the bike in Seyðidfjörður and go to Reykjavík for a week or so, to explore South West Iceland. (This had always been part of the plan when I dreamt up this Viking Adventure for Lucy). We will return to collect it and get the ferry back to Denmark where we will start the long cycle ride South, along the West coast of Denmark, through Germany and on to the Hook of Holland to get the ferry back to Harwich, sometime in September.
And on to Reykjavík
There are only two buses (morning and afternoon) during the week and one at weekends out of Seyðisfjörður and one road. So I got up early to catch the 7.50 bus. There is no bus stop sign but I thought I was in the right place as there was one other person waiting. Although when it arrived I wasn't sure if it was the scheduled bus or not.
The road linking Seyðisfjörður and the outside world is 29 km and climbs over the mountains to Egilsstaðir, the principle town of Austerland and the gateway to East Iceland. In winter the town can be cut off after a snow storm as those of you who saw the Islandic TV series 'Trapped' will have seen. I spent the day exploring the town and while I went to look at the church and the Women's Memorial, Lucy went to Gálgaklettur (Gallow's Rock) the ancient execution site.
Then I walked a mile or so to the tiny airport to catch a plane across the centre of Ísland to Reykjavík.
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