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Today we have two choices…very short day or very long day. We decide on the former…I think we have time! Two days have been set aside for Reykjavik at the end of our trip…we suspect we’ll only need one and anyway, it’s easy to come back another time to see Reykjavik but I doubt we’ll be back to the fjords any time soon.
We set off reasonably early. Icelanders do not seem to get going very early and it’s the best time to get a shower and a look in at the wash up area. It’s looking slightly duller today but not wet so that’s fine.
We drive off the camp passing steaming water in the bay. Normally you couldn’t keep me out of the sea but here you might end up boiled if you are not careful!
Our route takes us along the coastal road to weaving in and out around the inlets which are shadowed by snow capped mountains. We take plenty of stops at various points to admire the view.
We arrive at our first official point of interest, Litlibaer. It’s a real disappointment. It’s supposed to be an abandoned village but we don’t
find much other than a renovated rea shop! It’s not yet 10am so they are not open!
We press on, over a mountain pass which takes us to Sudavik - a small town which is pretty but really something to bypass.
Rounding the final turn, we see Isafjordur in the distance. Here we do stop to look at some older buildings…a street of colourful houses dating back to 1925 plus the old hospital, now a museum and also closed till 1pm. Phew, I’m completely museumed out…it’s something the Icelandic people seem to love…find a small tin shack, fill it with random stuff and fleece the tourists? Today we pass an Arctic Fox Museum and a Sheep Museum amongst others!
The final short leg of our journey takes us to Bolungarvik. Google maps says the road is closed but fortunately I have read up on this and realise that it’s the old gravel, potholed road that is closed, not the new one. There have been a lot of landslides here, the last one killing twenty five people, so they didn’t bother to clear the debris, but instead bored a hole right through the mountain so now we have
a smart new tarmac road complete with 4km tunnel. We are there in no time!
We arrive at the campsite which doubles up as sports centre and swimming pool - pretty common here. It’s not a bad campsite but certainly not the best so I feel very sorry for the blogger that wrote this was the best campsite in Iceland that they had stayed at! There is a kitchen, but only two rings and pretty dirty (though that’s the fault of previous users I guess). If we want a shower we must pay and use the pool showers. Not too bad but the pool closes at 6pm and opens next day at 11am…so the hours are not exactly convenient!
It’s 1pm so we decide to have our main meal now rather than fight for the cooker rings later. We can have a sandwich this evening. We also cook up some pasta as it’s possible that tomorrow nights campsite won’t have a kitchen at all.
The weather is fine so we decide to take a stroll into town. There’s nothing much there! The tarmac pretty much ends here though there are a couple of smaller places if you
can stand the bumpy ride.
We wander to the harbour and stumble across a couple of flowerbeds that are labelled as being the town’s botanical garden and a display of an ancient Icelandic poem. It was written around 1000AD and talks about the start of the world from a pagan perspective.
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