Iceland Adventures – Westfjords –Hornstrandir Nature
Preserve– 8/26/15 - 3 km
No early wake-up, no packing, no driving today. What does one do on a Wednesday in the upper
reaches of the Westfjords of Iceland?
First, Cathy and I walked a whopping two blocks to a bakery
for coffee and pastry as school kids whizzed past on their bikes.
Online Mike found an intriguing boat excursion to Hornstrandir
Nature Reserve departing at 2:00 p.m. A
few hours to kill until then, so as Mike and Cathy walked to the harbor to pick
up the tickets, and Kim and Paul went exploring… welcome to Sharon’s “town day” in Ísafjörður! I wandered through the retail sector and a
couple of neighborhoods, past churches, a day care center, museums and
apartment buildings. Covered from end to
end in about an hour.
School
Around town – clouds on the mountaintops
The harbor
Seaman’s Monument
Life = bikes, baby pram and a front yard rock garden
Front door tableau
Ísafjarðarkirkja (church)
Grave marker in the adjoining cemetery. Icelanders do not have family surnames that
pass from generation to generation. Instead, last names follow a formula: the father’s name plus, for a male, the
suffix “son” and for a female, the suffix “döttír”. In addition, there is a limited legal list of
male and female names from which to choose a child’s first name. How do they keep track of each other? Read more about Icelandic names here.
Icelandic poppies in the cemetery
Woman walking with a guide dog
Postal carrier
An apartment building – and blue sky!
Mike and I had a quick pizza lunch at Hamraborg, then our
gang joined up at the grocery store and made our way to the harbor for our
afternoon adventure. Once again the
skies were predominantly cloudy with sketchy glimpses of blue.
The wind was brisk and the boat ride across open
water was bumpy and exciting!
Hornstrandir in a nutshell:
The peninsula was once sparsely populated by fishermen and some farmers.
Much of the land is still privately owned, but is now a strictly protected
nature preserve. Some owners spend
summers there. Landowners are not
allowed to sell their property or houses and can only pass them down to family
members.
Our destination was Hesteyri, once an active fishing village
when the area thrived on whaling and then on processing herring. When the herring population diminished significantly
in the 1940s, the people of Hesteyri made a joint decision to move away, and in
1952 the village stood totally abandoned.
Hesteyri’s church was disassembled and moved to another village. A terrific blog post with lots more info about Hesteyri is here.
Hikers and backpackers are welcome on Hornstradir, but there
are no services for resupply so self-sufficiency is paramount. There are a few
hostels. There are also emergency huts
in some locations with radios and heaters, but they are not meant for planned
accommodations. Trails are unmarked and
fog is common, thus map and compass skills are necessary. Because of limited
days in our itinerary, we chose the tourist option of a guided walk rather than
the hardcore experience, a good decision given the blustery weather and
predictions of an incoming storm.
As I said, the wind was strong and we couldn’t pull up
to the dock. Looks like we’re going to
need a smaller boat!
Riding the Zodiac to the dock
An Arctic fox greeted us upon arrival
Arctic fox
Our Icelandic guide, even more adorable than the
Arctic fox
Our walk took us a short distance along the shoreline
and through a meadow
To the cemetery
River flowing down to Hesteyri
The white house in the center is the Doctor’s House
for Hesteyri’s resident physician now serving as a hostel. Under the category of “next visit” I will be
sure to stay here.
Coffee and cake at the Doctor’s House
Wildflowers in abundance
The return boat ride was crowded because we had picked up
half a dozen backpackers who were bailing out.
Scheduled pickups are easily canceled by the weather forecast and there
would be no more boats for the next couple of days. We met two charming young women from the Czech
Republic who had been on Hornstrandir for two rainy days and had planned
another three, but they were glad for the opportunity to escape. [Our
paths crossed again later in another part of Iceland.]
Back safe and dry in Ísafjörður, we found another
incredible dining experience at Tjöruhúsið, an unassuming barn type building on
a back street near the harbor.
Reservations are important but we showed up clueless and
squeezed in. Family style, all you can
eat, sitting cheek to cheek on benches, the most incredible assortment of fresh
seafood dishes I have ever eaten, beginning with fish soup and ending with
regret at not being able to consume it all.
Food comes out to the buffet table as it’s ready, and those
in the know wait patiently for the cod cheeks.
This restaurant alone is reason enough to go to Iceland. Another unforgettable day.
“Stuff your eyes with wonder, live as if you’d drop dead in
ten seconds. See the world. It’s more fantastic than any dream made or paid for
in factories.” ~Ray Bradbury
