Head in the clouds

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We awake to rain drumming on the van. I suppose that (apart from day 2) we’ve been very lucky with the weather so far. Today we have not got far to go and have made good progress so we can take it easy.

So far there has been no sign of anyone taking payment at the campsite…a little worrying as Iceland seems to be full of hidden cameras, snapping your number plate and waiting to slap you with a hefty fine if you don’t work our which website to visit or app to download in order to pay! Until now this has only applied to various carparks or national park areas that we have driven in to. Most campsites have been fairly unsophisticated…ie someone drives in between 7-8pm, collects payment and issues ticket for windscreen. Perhaps they will turn up this morning?

We have had our breakfast and are just about thinking of leaving when the camp warden turns up. He takes payment and says he will sort out the lack of loo paper! Amazingly he does and now we are ready for the off.

On a different day it would have been a pleasant stroll onto town from the campsite, but now it’s raining so we take the van. Faskrudfjordur was established as a small town in the late 19th century by a group of French men who fished it until 1914. As a nod to its past, the road signs are labelled in Icelandic and French. Apart from an interesting little garden there’s little else to report.

It’s now raining in earnest. Any thoughts of a walk are quickly abandoned and we make our way to Reydarfjordur, a mere 20km away of which 6km involve driving through a very long mountain tunnel.

There is a war museum in the town but it doesn’t open till 1pm so we stop off at a supermarket to pick up milk and bread and use their facilities. We arrive at 11.01, which is handy as they don’t open till 11 either! There is also a pharmacy next door where we purchase a small bottle of cough medicine for Ian…£12, ouch!

With all this time on our hands we considered doing a fry up in the back but we’re really not that hungry as breakfast was late. We decide on a sandwich instead and a mug of steaming hot chocolate. It’s now belting down outside.

We make our way to the end of town and park up in the museum car park. I decide it’s not my thing and leave Ian to enjoy it in peace. I snuggle up in the back of the van to catch up on some of my Spanish lessons…wrapped in a blanket and the heater blowing semi efficiently.



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Ian’s report on the museum…

The museum documents Iceland’s occupation between 1940 and 1945 by first the British, and later the Americans. The Island was a vital staging post across the Atlantic and base for submarine-hunting aircraft. The first 150 military personnel arrived in June 1940, followed by bigger British and US garrisons; most of whom being withdrawn by 1943 since it was felt that Germany was now unable to invade. The museum illustrated the effect on the population- at one stage the populations near to the camps were outnumbered by at least four-to-one.

Since there was only limited enemy activity directed at Iceland; several small air raids by one or two bombers, there were few war like artefacts - only three German aircraft crashed on the island, mostly due to poor weather or accident.

The museum is housed in several Nissan huts which were originally the military hospital facility. The majority of the other camps were dismantled by the Icelanders after the war for use as agricultural buildings.

The vehicles on display are all US trucks - after the war the locals just used them as logistical transport until they could replace them - one of them was still in use in the 1990s.

Overall, an interesting (for me) view on a backwater but vital part of the war effort.



Note: It was so interesting that Ian failed to take any photos!

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OK so it’s now another half hour drive to Egilsstadir - a major town of the Eastern region. Here there are much larger supermarkets (there’s a few things we’ve failed to acquire at the smaller places) and we note that fuel prices are quite a bit cheaper so we will fill up before we leave the area. We pretty much have to come in and out of this town over the next day or so.

We now make our way to our campsite at Seydisfjordur, which I will call Sadist Fjord. My reasoning being that it looks a very simple drive of 27 km - around half an hour. Actually no way…and when I turn on the terrain option I can see why…we are climbing steeply over a steep mountain road. It does have tarmac and it is not single carriage but it isn’t the widest and there are steep drops on either side.

It isn’t long before we find ourselves in the thick of the cloud and this is precisely where we encounter almost 30 degree switchbacks. Ian copes with them admirably and I’m very glad he is driving (so is he!).

We reach a plateau at the top and good news…we are now above the cloud and the is road errr, is ‘kind of’ straight. We are in amongst large clumps of snow and the sat nav is screaming at us…’attention, ice on road’. Actually we think the the road is just wet but it’s getting pretty cold.

Not quite home and dry…we now have to negotiate dropping back down to sea level. There are more switchbacks to come but somehow they don’t seem quite as bad as the first lot.

We have arrived at the town and there is nowhere else to go except the campsite or back the way we came. Oh, unless we want to catch the ferry to Denmark that is. There is a huge cruise liner in the harbour which has made its way here via the Faroe Isles…for one mad moment I did consider getting to Iceland this way!

It’s still hammering down with rain but I nip up to take a photo of the cruiser…it might be gone tomorrow.

Now to explore the campsite. Lovely loo block with two showers and a fantastic kitchen and dining room. There’s also a washer and dryer so I’m able to put through the mountain of washing we seem to have accumulated! I should definitely have packed more corduroy trousers!

We settle down in the warm dining room and cook our dinner. It’s a very sociable place. We meet an ex-Aussie who comes to share our dining table…he now lives in Aberystwyth and is cycling around Iceland, rather him than me! He tells us about a nice indoor swimming pool and sauna in the town - I’ll definitely be seeking that out tomorrow!

I also get chatting to a French guy from Normandy - he has just arrived with his own motorhome on the ferry. You never know who you might bump into in the laundry room! :-)

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