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Published: October 15th 2022
Dear All
Wow! The Faroe Islands did not fail to impress. After recently writing my blog entry on my first few days on this amazing archipelago, I realised what an amazing time I had had there. But there was more in store for me, and this second and final blog entry on my time there aims to relate my adventures for a further four days that I spent on these incredible islands. I really enjoyed the second half of my week there, the scenery remained stunning, the experiences unique, and the people just as lovely.
On the Saturday morning after spending the previous day with puffins, I had to move on from my accommodation spectacularly located on a hillside overlooking central Torshavn below and the island of Nólsoy in the distance. Although the place was peaceful, had everything I needed, and the host was lovely, I realised that the place was really quite a dump. The furniture and fittings were from the 1970s at least, the sofa bed was made of half wood and half mattress whose every spring you could feel while lying down on it. The part of it which I slept on was on very moveable
Lítla Dímun
Smyril Line Ferrywheels, so every time I turned in the night, the whole bed moved along the floor with me. It really was quite a shambles. When originally booking, I was initially hoping to have it for all of my seven nights there, but it was only available for the first three. In hindsight I was so glad about this, and for the remaining four nights I booked myself into a slightly more expensive place further out of town and into the northern Torshavn suburb of Hoyvík. What an amazing decision! This place was a dream, although I think anything would have been adequate after the dump, and given my previous experience I think I appreciated this place even more. It was swish and swanky, with a great amount of space, modern appliances, all the right things in all the right places, including an oven and a cooker so I could make myself bacon and eggs for breakfast rather than noodles and yoghurt. The owner was also very kind and left me bread, milk, butter, jam, cheese and muesli for an even wider breakfast experience - how lovely. The location was also perfect too, and the bus that stopped at the bottom
Me
Helipad, Froðba of the road of my former accommodation amazingly took a direct route through town and out again, a distance of around three miles, and dropped me at the bottom of the road for my next one. It was also only a mile's walk away from the out-of-town bus stop with services to all the places on the islands I was planning to explore next, meaning I didn't have to take a bus back into the bus station in town again, but just catch it as it left the urban area. It seems just amazing how many things just seem to work out for the better anyway when one is travelling.
After settling into my new place, my initial plan for the day was to visit the afore-mentioned island of Nólsoy, a short boat ride away from Torshavn and apparently a good spot for some walking and sea views. However, the weather was wet that day, in fact raining heavily all day, and after arriving in this palace of an accommodation, I decided this isn't a place just to leave my stuff in for the day and sleep in at night, but a place to be enjoyed and get my
A Wet Blackbird!
Hoydalsá Wonderland money's worth from. I thus called it a wet-weather day, and lolled about the digs for the best part of the morning, and then spent the rest of the day visiting interesting non-touristy places nearby. I wanted to get to know the real Faroe Islands.
So after a lovely rest, I first walked through an incredible untouched beauty spot around the nearby Hoydalsá stream on my way to my destinations for the day. I followed a lovely route for a mile or so along up-and-down and curvy paths, wandering up hills, along a gushing stream, through pastures, moorlands, past rocks, a sizeable waterfall, and even through chicken, duck, sheep and pigeon (!) enclosures. Passing the chickens and ducks, they all came out to greet me, clucking and quacking, probably thinking I was going to feed them - poor little things. With the drizzly rain and mist coming and going, it was like walking through another world, it was gorgeous, like "Alex Through the Looking Glass", with a new and intriguing sight at every turn. I loved this place, and returned back to my accommodation later that day along the same route again.
After this other-worldly beauty, my next
stop was the state alcohol shop, or Rúsdrekkasøla Landsins. Scandinavian countries have very strict laws about selling alcohol - in Norway, supermarkets only sell beer, but not in the evening nor on a Sunday. Stronger stuff like wine and spirits are found in special alcohol shops, with each sizeable town having at least one. Denmark was more like the UK, it was much freer, and you can buy all kinds of alcohol in supermarkets there. The Faroe Islands are even stricter than Norway though, and you can't even buy beer in supermarkets. The country has six state-sponsored alcohol shops including this one in Torshavn, which I visited on this day, and bought myself a nice little bottle of brandy to last me a few days, rather than lots of heavy cans of beer.
After this, I popped next door to a very friendly electronics shop to see if they could look into a problem my camera had been having since arriving in the Faroes. The zoom didn't work properly - it didn't fix on objects before taking photos of them, and black edges appeared around my photos unless I zoomed in - this is noticeable on some of the
photos I've been publishing on here so far. Despite being very friendly and offering me coffee and lots of sweets, the lovely staff members unfortunately couldn't fix it, although they did suggest that there could be damp or water inside - this would make sense, having just arrived on the wet and damp Faroe Islands. Something similar happened to my camera in the humid Amazon rainforest a few years ago, which cleared up after I left the jungle. I subsequently tried a hairdryer to dry it out, to no avail, and was hoping the problem would improve after leaving the Faroe Islands. It didn't, so I ended up using the camera on my Samsung mobile phone, which actually produced some amazing photos that I wouldn't have taken otherwise. My camera still remained fairly operable, and I ended up using it for zoomed photos for the rest of the trip, and a few panoramas. I have bought a new camera since arriving back in the UK, I think the old one was well-and-truly busted by the damp wet Faroese weather...
I then went for a nice walk along a cliff edge to a nearby helipad, where I've managed to book
a helicopter to the southernmost island of Suðuroy on the Monday, to take the ferry back again. As mentioned in my previous blog, you can only book one helicopter ride per day there. It's a quick and easy way of travelling between the islands, and is amazingly cheap - it only cost around £25 for the 30-minute journey to Suðuroy, while the ferry takes two hours. I was very excited, as I'd never been in a helicopter before! I managed to book it that same morning at 7am, with 5 out of the 12 seats still left. Tickets go on sale online two days before helicopter flights. As also mentioned, I'd had no such luck with the Mykines helicopter, bookable seven days in advance as it's a popular one, which were all sold out when I tried to book it the week before at 7am. I was so excited to see where I'd be flying from on the Monday!
After this, I headed to the Faroe Islands' main leisure centre, which in addition to a swimming pool, has a sauna, hot and cold tubs, as well as a cool water slide. It was great for a rainy day such
as this one, and I loved being nice and warm in the sauna and tubs - I also enjoyed becoming a kid again on the brilliant water slide!
Next I headed onto the Faroe Islands' National Gallery, which was a lovely place to see paintings and artwork by local Faroese artists of Faroese places, some I'd already visited, as well as people and culture. This was another great rainy day option, and the highlight for me just had to be an amazing art installation called "The Deep Blue" by artist Tróndur Patursson, where with glass and mirrors, you have the impression you are deep underwater, with infinity below and above you - it was amazing! In addition, I loved a metalwork structure based on my favourite Faroese island of Lítla Dímun, more on that below, which you could also walk inside - the artist apparently wanted the viewer to experience what a Faroese island was like from the inside! I also wondered at quite an amazing sculpture of a pilot whale made completely out of metal toy soldiers, in a gesture towards local activists' battles with the ancient Faroese tradition of whale-hunting, as also depicted in a recent Scandinoir
series from the Faroe Islands called "Trom".
I then walked through the lovely Viðarlundin í Havn park nextdoor, with the only trees I'd seen so far on the Faroe Islands, followed by a walk back once more through the other-worldly Hoydalsá stream valley to my accommodation. I stopped off at Hoyvík's own Bonus supermarket to supply my four nights' catering there, before relaxing for the rest of the evening, and giving my clothes a thorough drying off on the huge radiator in the accommodation. It was a wet day, but thoroughly enjoyable, and gave me a great glimpse into life for the ordinary Faroese folk beyond the tourist sights.
Sunday was another great day. It was quite tricky to organise any plans for this day, as the Faroese take their Sundays very seriously - it is very much a rest day there. Many buses and ferries don't run, and those that do are on a very limited schedule. Shops are also closed, and even the big "Bonus" supermarket chain doesn't open on a Sunday! Fortunately I knew all of this when making my food shopping and travel plans, and noticed that one bus route was still running, albeit
only with three runs that day. This was the one from Torshavn to Klaksvik, the Faroes' second largest settlement with a whopping 6000 people! Plans were thus made for my Sunday excursion that day.
I used the very handy out-of-town bus stop around a mile from my accommodation that morning, at which most of the buses leaving the capital stop before heading on to distant far-flung islands. It was definitely a bus stop in the middle of nowhere, but fortunately was sheltered from both the wind and the rain as these seem to start up and stop with surprising frequency in this part of the world. Bang on time, the number 400 showed up and took me the one-and-a-half hour journey to this bustling metropolis of the northern islands. Due to only two further buses returning back to Torshavn that day, I could either spend two-and-a-half hours in town, or seven - I chose the latter. I was concerned that this would be a little too much time to spend in such a small place, particularly if it was raining constantly, but in fact it was perfect!
The bus left the main Faroese island of Streymoy, traversed the
next island to the east called Eysturoy, and then a cool mile-long inter-island undersea tunnel, before arriving on the island of Borðoy where Klaksvik is situated. I spent the first three hours there hiking up nearby Klakkur mountain, 413m high and overlooking the unusually shaped town of Klaksvik below, sitting on a narrow isthmus of land around a kilometre in length, and at each side heading a beautiful fjord. Buildings clung to the sides of both these fjords, and along with its unusual shape, it was a mightily beautiful setting. Klakkur mountain also commands amazing views over four islands in total, out of the Faroes' 18, and these are Borðoy, Kunoy, Kalsoy and Eysturoy. Between each island through the archipelago there are long, narrow and stunning fjords, so the view from the top of this mountain was incredible - fjords, mountains and islands, filled with blues and greens. The climb was easy overall, with a very steep grassy part again towards the top, and the hike was seriously worth the superlative views.
Heading back into town again, I passed by Klaksvik's own helipad just as a helicopter was coming in to land. I was able to speak with both
pilots as they were coming in to the little hut of a terminal building, and they both separately told me that the flying weather the next day would be calm. This was very much a relief for my own helicopter journey the next day, which ended up being with the same pilots again! I was excited, but since it was the first time ever I'd be in a helicopter, I was also quite nervous!
Back in Klaksvik, I spent another two hours at this town's swimming pool, though mostly in its adjacent well-being centre. This was even better than Torshavn's, with an indoor jacuzzi, two outdoor hot tubs, an outdoor cold tub, two saunas and a steam room. It was wonderful, and just what the doctor ordered after the three hour hike up Klakkur!
The town was just finishing off a three-day music festival, the Summarfestivalurin, or "The Summer Festival", which had ended the day before. There were a number of caravans and tents still up, with a bit of activity taking everything down again, and a fair number of bleary-eyed people. Most town residents I spoke to didn't like the festival being there, and all the drinking
it attracts, and I can't say I blame them at all. I also spoke with a number of festival-goers who were on their way home - they were in good spirits, and said they had an amazing time. One guy was still lounging next to his caravan overlooking one of the fjords, playing a Roxette song I particularly like called "Things Will Never Be The Same", which also put me in good spirits too - it was an atmospheric song to listen to whilst overlooking still fjord waters surrounded by mountains on each side. The type of music played at this festival is not modern or electronic, but oldies from the 80s and 90s. Past performers have included the likes of Roxette themselves, ad well as The Scorpions, Kim Wilde, and a Finnish rock group who I quite like called The Rasmus. I think I wouldn't have had a terrible time had I spent time at the festival there myself!
My final two hours in Klaksvik were spent just wandering around the lovely little town. Nothing of course was open, it being a Sunday, not even its famous Christianskirkjan church, although it was open earlier that morning for a
service. Nevertheless, I enjoyed my wander, admiring the town's amazing setting further, and passing by the Föroya Bjór brewery, the Faroese national brew, though again this wasn't open. It was cool to see it from the outside though, as I very much enjoyed this strong beer during my time in both the Faroe Islands, and later Iceland where it is also popular.
After a surprisingly enjoyable seven hours, I was ready to take the bus again back to Torshavn, and settled into a wonderful journey admiring amazing views again over these stunning islands, listening to good music, including Roxette, on my MP3 Player. The weather turned out absolutely glorious that day, with the sun out and really warm temperatures particularly towards the end. Back in Torshavn, there was a fine drizzly mist in the air which soaked me on my walk back to my accommodation, but nothing that the industrial-sized radiator there wouldn't fix. It was a lovely day, and I very much enjoyed relaxing in my plush accommodation that evening - wonderful!
I thought Monday was an amazing day of great travel. I must admit I was a bit nervous, having booked a helicopter flight in the
Helipad
Torshavn morning to Suðuroy, the Faroes' southernmost island. Whilst never having flown in a helicopter before, it is a common mode of transport there, particularly for the locals, and is an easy way of getting from island to island. It is operated by the country's national air carrier, Atlantic Airways, and is subsidised by the government, so it is very cheap - it cost me only £25 for the 30-minute journey! I was first nervous about the flight there, but also nervous about the journey back, a two-hour ferry journey on the country's national shipping carrier, the Smyril Line. This was the ferry that the bus driver back in Gjógv had told me about, and shown me the YouTube video of getting pounded by the waves in a serious storm not long ago. The sea in this particular part of the islands can be so rough that they sometimes cancel the ferry, so I took an overnight bag with me just in case. I hadn't realised, but the same actually happens for the ferry to Mykines, and tourists can end up stranded there for days. In fact, just two days after my own trip there, they cancelled the Mykines ferry for
a few days due to rough seas, so there may have been tourists stranded there!
So a little nervous, I headed to the helipad I'd been to the day before, through the amazing wonderland area I'd also walked through, though without the mist on this day so it didn't feel quite so other-worldly this time. The helicopter arrived with the same two pilots from the previous day in Klaksvik, and it picked up 12 of us in total - half tourists, half locals I'd say. The flight was amazing!! We took off straight upwards, of course, and this in itself was quite incredible to me. Then we headed out over the seas and flew over the islands! I could see birds flying over the sea below us, it was amazing, though a little bumpy at times. We first landed on an island called Stóra Dímun, approachable by sea only on clear and calm days, but also by helicopter twice a week. The island is home to two families in total, and four members of them seemed to be on our helicopter and got off there. The rest came out to meet us, along with a tractor to carry their
luggage and some dogs. What an amazing place, also home to a Faroese Saga story which I will recount below.
We took off again, and flew past my favourite Faroese island, Lítla Dímun, the smallest of the 18 major islands at only a square kilometre in area. It is uninhabited and uninhabitable, with no real place to pull up in a boat. I love the island as it looks so amazing, and its shape to my mind represents the quintessential Faroese landscape - ancient steep-sided volcanoes protruding straight out of the sea. Maybe I felt some kind of connection or kindred also to the island - it sits proudly and firmly, alone, yet confident in its own position.
After this we flew over the far-flung southern island of Suðuroy, again a loner in this collection of 18 Faroese islands, and landed on its helipad in a small village called Froðba on the outskirts of its main town of Tvøroyri, home to 872 people. I had seven hours to spend on this island, again wondering how I would fill them, but in the end realising that they became perfectly filled. I was once more rather fortunate with the weather
Football Stadium, Torshavn
Not sure this is a good slogan to be honest...! - it was dry all day, fairly warm for a couple of hours, then cold again, but still at least, dry. I first hiked eastwards to a promontory of land overlooking a beautiful sea-carved cave called Hol í Hellu. I wasn't sure what this name means, but wondered if it might translate as "the hole to hell"...! It was certainly a lot prettier than I imagined hell to be!
I then started a hike up the slope to a nearby viewpoint called Nakkur, around an hour away up the hill. I quickly learned that due to Suðuroy's more remote location, very few travellers make it this far south, and I was certainly the only one going on this hike. This was quite different to the dozen or so other people I had met on previous hikes. I felt a bit more confident with the sheep moving out of the way as I walked, as I'm not too keen on passing sheep. Halfway up, however, I encountered two very angry birds, I think oystercatchers, who started screeching, swooping in front of me, and pooing. I paused, wondering what to do, and they settled on a nearby slope. I carried on
Faroese Art
National Gallery a little further, and they repeated their actions - instinct told me to hold my backpack on top of my head and beat a hasty retreat, which I did! This must have given them confidence seeing me run away though, as they continued screeching and swooping for a good two minutes or so after I decided to leave! I realised they must have been protecting their chicks or eggs, and thus as well as being rather intimidated by them, I also felt a bit bad that I had agitated them. In the tourist office in town, the lady there confirmed that they would have been protecting their young, and also that I did the right thing in putting my backpack on my head. I had read that there is a place upcoming in my journey in Iceland where I'd have to encounter such bird behaviour again, on the way to the Arctic Circle, and I wasn't particularly looking forward to it.
This abandoning of my hike turned out to be fortuitous actually, as after having then decided to head into Tvøroyri to see if there were any buses I could take to other parts of the island, I found
Faroese Art
National Gallery out that there was, and that I would also make it back again in time for my return ferry. After speaking with the afore-mentioned lady in the tourist office, it turned out I could take a bus around 30 minutes further south to the island's second town of Vágur, where I'd have two hours to explore. I arrived at the bus stop just as the bus arrived, so I guess if the birds hadn't attacked me, I wouldn't have been able to visit lovely Vágur - thank you birds!
Vágur turned out to be a lovely little town, and along with Tvøroyri, is also nestled around a beautiful fjord. They probably receive even fewer tourists, and my favourite thing about the place was just how friendly and welcoming the locals were. The people of Suðuroy are considered more animated than the rest of the Faroese, kind of like the Mediterraneans of the islands. I spoke with a very friendly lady who was walking her dog by driving alongside it as it cantered along next to the car, who I later met again as the owner of a beautiful red house in the middle of town, home to countless antiques
Faroese Art
National Gallery her husband collected. She opened the place up especially for me, and showed me around. This seemed like a place where everyone knows everyone, and a stranger like me really stood out. I also talked with a friendly new mother who was out walking her baby in a pram, as well as a cleaning lady in the village's church, which also had a hanging ship. She was actually the only person I encountered on the islands who did not speak English, and it turned out we communicated through the very unlikely "lingua franca" of Danish. Although in actual fact I was really speaking Norwegian, we still understood each other!
Another friendly tourist information worker pointed out a local walk which I took along a beautiful small lake called Vatnið, towards the coast at a stunning location called Vagseiði, with crashing waves, a beautiful rocky coastline, and arresting views out to sea, out over the depths and mysteries of the North Atlantic Ocean. It was wild, and a lovely place to spend a quiet moment with myself. I also met a very nice Norwegian guy who was leading a group of Indonesian tourists through the islands on a photography tour,
Faroese Art
National Gallery a group who I had also encountered a few days earlier on Mykines. This is a small place to travel in, and on several occasions such as this one I met the same fellow travellers in different places.
After taking the bus back to Tvøroyri to await the ferry back to Torshavn, the sailing was very smooth actually, and quite a relief! I learned by talking with fellow travellers, and then reading up on it back in my accommodation, that the next two days were going to be very stormy in the Faroes, wet and windy, with very rough sea conditions. After telling a Faroese gentleman on the ferry that I was taking a boat trip the next day to the Vestmanna Bird Cliffs, he simply said to me "good luck"! The UK Met Office's forecast for the Faroes region of the North Sea actually had 60mph winds, and wave heights of 4.5m in the evening, dying down to "only" 40mph and wave heights of 3.5m by Wednesday evening, just as my ferry was due to head out over this stretch of the North Sea and onto Iceland - I prepared myself mentally for another bumpy journey.
My
final full day in the Faroes was a very soggy one. I realised just how amazingly fortunate I had been with the weather there during my time thus far. For the days when I'd been outside, the weather was fine, sometimes cloudy, sometimes actually sunny which is rare for up there. And this was during the height of summer - I'd dread to think what the winter was like! The two wet days occurred on the best days for wet ones I think. The first was on the Saturday, during which as mentioned I spent time exploring mostly indoor attractions in and around Torshavn. The second was this final day - a seriously wet one! I had booked a boat trip to the stunning Vestmanna Bird Cliffs, on the west coast of the main island of Streymoy. This was the other of the two "must-do" attractions of the Faroes along with Mykines. I ended up absolutely drenched, and probably sealed the nail in the coffin for my poor camera, but I still think the wet weather on this day was better than having it on a seven-hour hiking day.
I originally thought that the trip would be cancelled. As
mentioned, all Mykines ferries were cancelled Monday and Tuesday, and I'd received an email from my Vestmanna tour operator the evening before saying that the skipper may have to make alterations to the itinerary or do a different tour. It turned out, however, that after taking two connecting buses to Vestmanna, we pretty much did the tour as planned. This was still with heavy rain throughout, and some serious waves particularly towards the end which one of the ferry workers said were around 3.5 metres in height. This was huge for a small boat such as this one carrying only 35 people. For some reason, although I still think I made the right decision, I decided to weather it out on the top deck of the boat, as you really couldn't see that much from inside down below where most of the other passengers were. Towards the end of it, when the waves were at their worst, I decided to go inside, but after getting up from my seat the boat lurched so much that I instinctively dropped down to my hands and knees - the skipper told me to stay like that for about a minute or so, until
it got a bit more settled again, and I certainly followed his advice.
Most of my fellow passengers belonged to a big tour group of around 25 Swedish pensioners. I actually love Swedish people, and Sweden is still my favourite Scandinavian country, but these people were quite simply grumpy old g£ts. They spent most of the journey looking miserable, not being aware of anyone around them. If someone happened to inadvertently stand in their way of getting a good picture, their first recourse was to shout at them and get very angry. In fact, a lady actually shouted at me for daring to sit next to her and "block her view". I felt I responded calmly, saying that she could be a bit more polite and relax a little. I think they could all have relaxed just a little to be honest. A little later, as she was walking past me, the boat lurched, and I held out my hand to steady her in a "turn the other cheek" gesture, which I was very much at pains to do. I think deep down I would have preferred to have seen her flying. She actually appreciated this, and was a
little more pleasant after that.
Whilst I very much enjoyed the journey, and drank in the amazing scenery, up to 600 metre high cliffs, and fantastic birdlife, including lots and lots of cute puffins flying, I didn't take too many photos due to the conditions, and those I did take were not the best, often with droplets of water on the lens. I was so glad I did it though, and was able to do it. Speaking with one of the ferry workers, he said they were going to go out once more that day for the next tour, but then cancel the subsequent two tours for the rest of the day. Looking online later, they also cancelled all four tours for each of the next two days, so I did consider myself very fortunate to have done this. I greeted the captain as I disembarked, who chuckled as I shook his hand and thanked him for "helping us to survive" - he admitted it was pretty difficult out there for him.
After such a crazy boat ride, I spent a highly enjoyable time on land again, keeping dry and exploring the ferry company's own and attached Saga
Faroese Art
National Gallery Museum, which told stories from the old Viking Faroese Sagas with lifelike models and an excellent headphone set telling some pretty amazing tales. Three of these really stood out for me.
Firstly, the story of St Brendan who is believed to be the first person to have ever settled on the Faroe Islands, arriving from Ireland in the late 6th century seeking solitude.
Second, the gruesome end to a quarrel between two local Viking chieftains on the afore-mentioned island of Stóra Dímun, in which both of them were killed. One had "skewered" (exact wording from the headphones) the other with a long pole. Whilst "skewered", the other pulled himself towards his opponent by skewering himself further, and with a heavy swing of his sword, chopped off the other man's "arm and a large portion of his upper body" (again, exact wording!).
Finally, the tragic love story between two doomed Faroese lovers. An important Faroese man had once lost all he had, including his daughter's hand in marriage, during a gambling game. The girl was forced to marry against her will, and the not-so-happy couple ended up living on the afore mentioned Lítla Dímun island (although I did
Faroese Art
National Gallery think this was uninhabitable, maybe this is more legend than history...). Whilst there, the girl fell in love with a farm labourer, and the two plotted and carried out the murder of her husband. They were able to escape the authorities, as no law enforcer was able to land on the island for several years, and they were able to live together in love and peace. Eventually though, the authorities did land, and the man betrayed his wife by agreeing to testify against her in return for his own life. This happened, and the poor girl was sentenced to death by drowning. When they threw her into the sea though, she floated. They thought it was her hair which kept her afloat, so they cut if off, and threw her in again, at which point she "sank like a stone" (exact wording).
Gosh, these sagas are fascinating, and what a people those Vikings were!
After an epic time in the Saga Museum, I had one-and-a-half hours to kill before my bus back to Torshavn, and it was still absolutely chucking it down. The seating and dining area of the Museum was filled with the grumpy Swedes, so I
Faroese Art
National Gallery didn't want to be around them, and there were no bus shelters nearby to shelter from the rain. I really didn't fancy exploring the village of Vestmanna in such weather. I was told that the bus would still stop at a nearby petrol station though, so I spent most of my time waiting there - it did have a shelter at least from the rain, but not from the wind. After a rather long and miserable wait, pretty much soaked to the skin, I hatched a cunning plan of catching the bus as it was going into town, to wait there inside it warm and dry before it began its return journey back to Torshavn again. This gave me an extra 20 minutes of cosy shelter on the bus which I appreciated very much! After making a bus connection, I walked back through the rain in Hoyvík, seriously looking forward to being in my accommodation again.
And setting foot through the door, I put the heating on full blast, took off all my clothes, which were completely sopping, and emptied my backpack of everything, leaving it all on or nearby the big radiator. I was certainly wearing my "waterproof"
jacket that day, but it didn't keep much of the rain out. I may have to splash out a bit on a better one for next time, and also look into buying a waterproof camera, or at the least, a waterproof camera case (again, I thought I had one, but it didn't do much on a day like this!).
I arrived back at 3pm, and with a late check-out the next day at 1pm, I had a blissful 22 hours of being warm and dry ahead of me, as the storm really was howling outside. It was at this point wonderful to see the wind and heavy rain out of the cosy accommodation's window for the rest of the day and into the next.
The following day, I was booked on the 6pm overnight Smyril Line ferry once more, again with my own cabin, heading on to Iceland! I was so excited about Iceland, but was not looking forward to the bumpy ride. One of the ferry workers back in Vestmanna said that although the waves may be 3.5m high as the ferry sets off, it shouldn't be too bumpy as the wind will be behind the ferry
on its way to Iceland, thus the bumps shouldn't be so bad. I was keeping my fingers crossed!
So, until my next blog entry from the absolutely incredible country of Iceland, all the best for now, and thanks for reading 😊
Alex
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Home and Away
Bob Carlsen
Viking books...
I recommend that you read "The Last Viking" by Don Hollway and the "Last Crown" by Elzbeita Cherezinka.