#bolungarvik

[travelling-my-little-pony]

Cutesaurus regards a meal in Bolungarvik.

In Iceland.

[captainmartinisblog]

Fosses and Fjordurs

Saturday 15th June 2024 – Isafjordur, Iceland.

Last night, I was so shattered after such a long, not to say slightly disappointing day yesterday, in spite of the gorgeous weather. There was a barbecue poolside in the evening that the others wanted to go to but there was no lobster and the music was such a racket to my ears that I took my leave to watch Mozart’s ‘Magic Flute’ in the Theatre instead, presented on DVD by the Metropolitan Opera.

I’ve not been to a Mozart opera before and it was a bit ‘weird’, I must say. Let’s just say I’m glad I went but I’m just as glad it was ‘free’! I was so dog-tired by this time that my head barely hit the pillow and was asleep. I may not have written-up my Blog but at least I got 7 hours sleep for the first time!

Today we arrived in our last Icelandic port of call on this cruise, Isafjordur, capital of the Western Fjords, with a population of around 2,500. It was founded in the 9th century on the northern trading routes but today, fishing and tourism are its main income. It’s also just a hundred miles from the Arctic Circle with a sub-arctic climate and the mist had rolled-in from the North! Thankfully, it cleared somewhat during the day and it wasn’t that cold really.

We were followed (yet again) by Costa Favolosa but also today by Holland America’s Zuiderdam (2002: 81,769 tons and 2,272 passengers) which anchored and began tendering.

Sister ship to Westerdam and Noordam we were on last year, she’s similar in size and build origin to Costa Favolosa but a bit nicer looking, in my opinion.

While Angie went off to climb up Gongumannafoss Waterfall (that’s the sort of thing she does), Andrew, Sally & I took the less demanding local highlights tour, calling at Bolungarvik a few miles away in an adjacent fjord.

Here we were entertained with some Icelandic songs by a rather nice looking local called Petur.

Beside the fjord on an ancient fishing boat beaching site is the Osvor Maritime Museum, a collection of wooden turf-roofed fishermen’s huts.

The huts are 20th century reproductions and it’s less of a ‘maritime museum’ than it is about dried fish – and the local ‘character’, dressed in traditional fishermen’s oil-skins, seemed only too keen to have his photo taken with the ladies; though thankfully, he wasn’t covered in equally traditional fish oil and whale blubber (because that would have put them off!).

Driving back the other side of Isafjordur, our little excursion stopped at the Bunarfoss Falls in Skutulsfjordur (all these ‘fosses’ and ‘fjordurs’ can be really confusing!) Here we drank ice-cold melt-water from the mountain stream.

I may have mentioned the purple lupins before, when we were on the island of Heimaey but they are everywhere in Iceland, yet they are not endemic. However, they do spread like weeds and are a bit controversial. They were imported as an experiment from Alaska post WWII because it was discovered that they converted the nutrients in the volcanic deposits into ‘proper’ soil and help to reduce landslides – of which there are rather a lot, it seems!

Today’s was, in contrast to yesterday, a nice gentle excursion, made all the more pleasant by our cheery guide (who was a post-grad student from Tottenham, by the way!)

Departing Isafjordur, the cheeriness subsided when there was an ‘urgent announcement’ from Captain Olaf telling us that storm winds are predicted around the entrance to Prince Christian Sound in Greenland and that heavy ice-floes would also make it too dangerous to visit Nanortalik, the next port on our itinerary. It’s those Elves again……

[davidstanleytravel]

This heath spotted orchid was growing beside the trail to the Valagil Waterfall near Bolungarvik, Iceland.

[kuuk3n]

Aurora Borealis: Lakótelep edition

azt kell mondjam hogy az új telefon kamerája egész jó (iphone 12 pro)

[stephanocardona]

Bolungarvik by haukursig

[frauleinledzi]

[thomasverfaille]

Tunnelvision

[toptravelspot]

2016-08 Last sun rays kissing Bolungarvik. Westfjords Iceland. . . . . . . . #toptravelspot #iceland #bolungarvik #sunset #fjord #westfjords #visitwestfjords #locationindependent #travel #traveling #instantraveling #instatraveling #icelandstopover #pixeltheplanet #earthpix #wanderlust #landscapephotography #travelphotography #sonyalpha (at Bolungarvík)

[lindsaystravelblogs]

Sunday and Monday

Sunday

Something of a strange day today. We had breakfast and checked out and drove out to Bolungarvik (through another long tunnel) at the ocean end of the fiord. Not much to see, but we found a road not marked on our very poor map that took us over the mountain and down to Skalavik Bay in the next fiord.  It was pretty scary, a very rough unsealed track, narrow and very steep in places with an impressive drop off the side of the mountain if you took a corner too fast.  It was also very foggy for a few kilometres, quite dense at the top of the mountain, but fortunately only 3 or 4 other cars (that we saw – there may have been others!).  There were a few campers at the end of the road, some with kids enjoying the water and the black sand beach – but it was too cold for us.

We drove back over the mountain with the fog lifting slightly and back to Isafjordur through the tunnel (we had to give way to oncoming traffic this time) and on towards Sudureyri through the tunnels we had traversed yesterday. Those tunnels are in a T-shape with Flateyri to the south, Sudureyri to the west and Isafjordur to the north.

Sudureyri was a fairly rundown fishing village but was interesting because they were unloading a lot of fish from a boat into big tubs on the dock. We have no idea what the fish were, but they were being sorted into boxes and some were more than a metre long - the smallest were close to half a metre. The boxes being landed were filled with ice among the fish and a lot of it had melted and mixed with the fish blood. Of course, when they tipped the boxes up to empty them, hundreds of litres of mostly blood flowed all over the dock. The Black-headed Gulls loved it and a big flock of them descended on the fish, feasting on their innards and the blood. Educational rather than edifying!

We continued south, past Flateyri to explore some minor roads into more fiords before heading for our digs for the night.  I deliberately mentioned Holt and Flateyri in yesterday’s drive because our hotel tonight was the Holt Hotel.  In other words, we drove past it yesterday and had to back-track about 50 kilometres to get to our hotel tonight.  We have no idea why our trip planners did that unless they couldn’t book the hotels in the other sequence.

Not to worry, the Hotel Holt was said to be in Flateyri so we bumped along the road until we got there.  It was a strange village, very dilapidated, the poorest we had seen, with few residents, empty houses – and a whole lot of tourists running back and forth across the road in front of us without looking.  There were two tourist busses there – why? if there was nothing to look at.  There was a little coffee shop and a smaller craft shop, both overflowing with careless tourists – but no Holt Hotel (thank goodness!)

I had seen a sign for Holt on the other side of the fiord so we bumped back along the track to the main road, across the fiord and up the road signposted to Holt.  The only two buildings in sight were a couple of kilometres in so we wound our way in and turned left to the more promising of the two.  Wrong one!  We arrived at the other one, dilapidated and distinctly uninviting from the outside, and initially unwelcoming inside.  ‘We don’t open until 4pm’ despite our travel itinerary saying check-in is at 2pm.  We sat in the car for a while, then moved into a more comfortable sitting room near Reception and soon our room was ready and we got settled in.  The owner offered us fish for dinner at $50-odd a head, but we ended up eating in our room - some of the food we have carried or purchased along the way.  The hotel was nowhere near as bad inside as outward appearances predicted so we were quite happy and had a comfortable night’s sleep.

Monday

We topped up with fuel at a roadside pump near Flateyri – 41 litres at a tad over $AU3.50 a litre – not too bad for 701 kilometres, particularly given the roads here.  Then it was back through the dreaded tunnels (we had right of way this time) to Isafjordur (again) then progressively south-east back and forth along the shores of several fiords until we exited the Westfjords and back toward the Ring Road (Road 1). On the way, we stopped at Sudavik to look at some seals – a few greyish lumps on some rocks almost too far away to see. I doubt if I would have found them if there weren’t some other tourists pointing them out to each other.

We called in at the Arctic Fox Centre where there was a real fox sleeping outside – hard to see but with a beautiful multicoloured coat. There are snow-white foxes that are mainly in the snow country and brown and black ones in the warmer areas. Foxhunting was and still is a thriving sport, but despite this they are still listed as ‘of least concern’.  The display was a bit ratty, but there were lots of historical photos with interesting stories attached.

We didn’t stay long but I had seen a birding pond advertised for visitors a couple of kilometres further on and we went there. We could see lots of birds there, but they were too far away to identify.  We saw a track to where you could get a photo and see some of the birds so we drove out a little way, took some pics and headed back – into the fury of a woman running down the track saying you are not allowed to even walk out there, much less drive.  Absolutely no signage to that effect, no barriers of any sort and an inviting set of wheel-tracks but she did her rant, insisting that we should have known the unadvertised proscription and we went on our way, chastened but indignant.  Why advertise a bird pond to visitors and then keep birders so far away that they couldn’t even identify the species out there?

We saw many ducks along that road and many beautiful white Whooper Swans but were only once able to stop to look at them.

The traffic is interesting here.  There are relatively few small sedans, but lots of big 4WDs, mainly Landcruisers like ours.  Almost half of them are towing a caravan or a camper-trailer – they are everywhere.  I am not sure where they camp because we have seen very few places in the wilds where it would be possible, and only a few crowded (sometimes not so crowded) campgrounds – far, far fewer than needed to accommodate the number of vans and motorhomes on the road.  There must be some large campgrounds well away from the main roads.

It was a pleasant drive with spectacular mountain views but we were almost always close to the sea in fiord after fiord with little of anything of consequence that I haven’t mentioned elsewhere – narrow roads, wonderful scenery, lots of birds, wildflowers everywhere, quaint farms and churches, wide open spaces. Idyllic and tranquil.  On a couple of occasions we stopped and got out of the car to absolute silence – no wind, no waves, no bird-calls, no cars – utter silence.  (Unheard of?)  Clean, clear and cleansing to the soul.

Our hotel was in Holmavik.  It was a pleasant little town on the edge of the fiord and we drove around and visited the supermarket for a few more commodities. The supermarket was also a diner and we purchased far more French/Icelandic fries than we could eat.  We ate in our room rather than go out again. Heather was not feeling brilliant but more of that tomorrow.

[500pxpopular]

Bolungarvik. Westfjords, Iceland. by haukursig

[travelling-my-little-pony]

Princess Petals, Sunny Starscout, Queen Haven Misty Brightdawn and Jazz Hooves are all just admiring a view in Bolungarvik.

In Iceland.

[youneedone2]

Bolungarvik. Westfjords, Iceland by Haukur Sigurdsson

[davidstanleytravel]

Valagil Waterfall, 45 km south of Bolungarvik, Iceland, has cut a deep canyon into the volcanic hillside.

[kuuk3n]

the summer is upon us

[makedata]

Bolungarvik. Westfjords, Iceland. by haukursig // Bolungarvik, in the Westfjords of Iceland, doesn't see any sun from early December until late January. This photo is taken at 11am.

[ibrahem]

Bolungarvik. Westfjords, Iceland. by haukursig http://bit.ly/2oYJMgn