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Saga of Stephanie and Frank:
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Western Fjords
Bolungarvik in the mist 
The campground at Ísafjörður 
A street in Ísafjörður 
A back yard sculpture in Ísafjörður
A house in Ísafjörður
The huts of the fishing museum
The fisherman in front of the huts
The fisherman's wife and the fishing boat
The fisherman's wife and the fishing nets
A whale vertebra
Bolungarvik from the road to the radar station
At the top
Drive carefully!
Sheep crossing
The black sand beach at Skalavik
The ferry ride to Hesteyri
Fog rolling in
Leaving the fjords and heading inland
Climbing higher
Eating lunch at the top |
We drove 580 km from Reykjavik to Isafjordor, a small fishing town in the northwest corner of Iceland. It is at the heart of an area known as the Western Fjords. (FYI, a fjord is a long, narrow bay bordered on both sides with steep, high mountains.) In Iceland the main road (the ONLY road) is often gravel, barely wide enough for two cars to pass. Much of the journey to Isafjorder was like that. The final leg of the trip was a white-knuckle roller coaster ride on the edges of sheer cliffs--one wrong move and it's over the side into the abyss... It is a beautiful place. We camped for three days at a campground at the mouth of the fjord. We drove to Skalavik, where the road ends. We gazed out at Skalavik Bay and the Arctic seas beyond. It is difficult to imagine fishermen going out into these wild seas in small wooden boats, but they did it for a thousand years. We took a ferry to Hesteyri, part of the Hornstrandir wilderness, a spectacular uninhabited area of flat-topped volcanic mesas topped with glaciers. The ferry ride back was really rough. The "ferry" was actually a 30-ft boat that held about 50 people. Let's just say that they were handing out the barf bags left and right all the way back. Very exciting! We also visited a fishing museum on the way to Bolungarvik. It was a collection of huts and authentic fishing gear used for commercial fishing around the turn of the century. When we arrived at Bolungarvik, we drove to the top of a mountain above the town, where a U.S. radar station was located. The view was fantastic. |
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