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Published: June 29th 2022
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It’s 4am and it’s raining again. It’s quite nice hearing it beating on the van…but not so nice when I need a dash to the loo block!
We are staying in camp for a rest day today. The camp is right in the centre of town so the three things of interest, which we reckon will take all of five minutes, are all easily walkable.
Taking advantage of the camp kitchen, we indulge in a full English breakfast courtesy of Ian…bacon, eggs, tomatoes, beans and fried bread. Yum.
It’s stopped raining though the air is generally damp and the cloud is low. I’m glad we don’t have to drive over that mountain pass today! Tomorrow is set to be fair though anything can happen in an instant weather wise here.
Our first stop is the ‘Avalanche Monument’ - an uninspiring bunch of metal girders but I guess we have got the message.
Next the church and ‘Rainbow Street’. The pedestrian walkway has been painted in obvious multi colours to celebrate gay pride. The path leads right up to the church. A cruise ship has docked so it’s crawling with people. We stop to chat with a
couple from the Black Country, somewhere near Dudley, then decide to come back later when we might just get half a chance of taking a photo…their ship departs at 4.30pm. :-)
Now a wander through town. There are a lot of colourful old buildings with interesting little gardens. Some of these houses were shipped over from Norway in the 19th century when the town was first established…IKEA eat your heart out. Many are now being renovated to modern standards and there are some highly decorated examples.
This is a town of artisans so there are many gift shops to tempt the tour ship folk, but not us. :-)
As usual there are a few waterfalls and we walk up as far as the tallest one. It’s quite steep and slippery so I give the climb a miss. One mud bath per trip is one too many. :-(
On the way back we decided to treat ourselves to an Icelandic ice cream - highly recommended apparently. You might know that the ice cream parlour is closed. It opens at 4pm - a tad shortsighted given that the cruise ship is leaving around about then?
We locate
the swimming pool (we are going there later when it opens at 3pm) and discover the town hall building opposite.
OK, that’s Seydisfjordur done and dusted. Back to the camp kitchen for a cup of coffee and some card games till they close for cleaning.
After a bite to eat we make our way back up to Skaftfell, an art gallery that we missed earlier. It’s full of modern art which is not really our thing. Anyone reading who was at university with me will know what I mean when I say it could best be described as a ‘Pavel Project’! Ie totally meaningless to me! The lady in the gallery is very helpful. I ask her about the art installation in the mountains. Apparently it has not been vandalised, they remove the screens on the blocks in the winter…ie you might just see them in July or August. If they left them there outside if the summer the wind we blow them away!
Now it’s time to go for a swim. Ian decides against it as he finds swimming as interesting as I find museums…that is to say not! I’m expecting an ice cold pool but
in fact it’s deliciously warm…like swimming in bath water! The hot tub is broken so they have sacked the temperature up two degrees to 31. I get a good hour of length swimming in, largely uninterrupted. There are a small group of kids having a whale or a time with beach balls, various floats and a huge rubber ring. From time to time another adult gets in swims two lengths then disappears off to the sauna. It’s an entertaining diversion for a dull afternoon. The cloud is still pretty low.
Our campsite is really full now with vans nose to tail…I hope we will get out in the morning!
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