North of Akureyri
Hildur Sif shook her Wednesday fever overnight, but acquired trunk-wide rashes instead. Bjarki also joined in on the rash-fun but since neither of them looked terribly sick or seemed at all bothered by their rashes (flea bites? hot tub gunk reaction?) we decided to head out anyway, and explore the area to the north of Akureyri.
Make sure you know how to drive on gravelly roads if you ever plan on driving in Iceland. 🙂
Still at the southern end of the fjord.
When you arrive at Eyjafjörður from Reykjavík, you emerge from a valley mid-way up the fjord. This is north of that mid-way point, and we’re driving where we’ve never driven before. Also, I left all the gunk on the windshield on purpose. We killed a lot of flies during this trip.
Hjalteyri harbor.
This is where they hang fish to make dried-fish (somewhat analogous to beef-jerky).
Helpful info. A large herring meal and oil processing factory was constructed in record time in 1937, so this town had something in common with Monterey apparently.
The now defunct plant. It’s now used for art-showings.
We decided to stop and visit the local cafe.
We’ve had better cakes but the kids liked their ice-creams. Anna was thrilled to find new reading material.
Halli and Adda enjoying the sun (taken by Finnur).
Hildur Sif being expressive.
Finnur and I took a quick stroll to the harbor while the kids hung out at the playground. They offer dive-tours there!
This is what you dive to see apparently. It is hard to see on that little artist’s rendering, but the little black dots of the chimneys are scuba divers. These geothermal chimneys are actually huge.
Finnur checking to see if anybody’s posted anything interesting on his Google+ stream… (not). 🙂 [Editor’s note: For the record, I was taking a photo of the nice view from that spot and checking to see how it came out. I don’t check Google+ on my mobile except when on WiFi because my stream containins too much content with beautiful photos to use it over 3G — I’m not on an unlimited 3G plan like they have in the US and I doubt they even sell it in Iceland]. 🙂
The village has nice wooden houses, some of which have been recently renovated. They mostly function as summer homes apparently. [Editor’s note: The man in that picture was eager to chat with someone as he was working so I struck up a conversation. Turned out he was staining the recycled wood (driftwood) he had just placed under his porch of his summer house and had fish being dried out in the sun for a dish he called Sundried Salted-Cod. He gave me a brief history of the village, how the factory had gone bankrupt in the sixties and that it had actually been a blessing in disguise for the city as a local municipal bought the land from the bank and had water mains installed into town.
More house-examples.
Heading back. This is the cafe in relation to the old herring plant.
We walked over to the plant to check out some art. There were four artists that had joined to present ‘four variations on moods’ (not people moods, but place moods). Each artist had one piece tucked away in a dark corner in the big empty hall.
Adda and Finnur poking their heads inside one installation. It had four facing walls with drawings, and the light switched from white to red. Outside the four walls were more walls to make the thing more enclosed.
Here be lights.
One installation had this large white-ish fabric swirling in circles while two light bulbs turned randomly on and off. When there was no light it was pitch black in there, but a constant whirring/motor noise played in the background – loud enough that I would have gone mad if I’d had to spend any length of time in there.
The third installation was a shed up on stilts, with a ladder going up to it, and what appeared to be a sunny postcard inside. Underneath were…
… these things.
The fourth installation was unphotographable due to insufficient light, but it appeared to be a collection of mangled cardboard boxes stuffed with duvets and blanket. Instead, I took a picture of the girl sitting by the front desk, asking people to sign the guestbook.
Finnur and Adda walking back to join the others. The village is tiny, with some 47-ish year-round inhabitants.
The couds make it look like the chimney is operational…
Did somebody paint the wall-insulation, and then brake a piece of it off?
Our next stop was as far north as we went: Dalvík. We resisted the urge to go watch whales.
Dalvík had a pretty active harbor area, with lots of trucks hauling fish here and there.
Finnur by the Dalvík sign. There’s a special connection between Google and Dalvík. [Editor’s note: The factoid about Dan’s ancestors being from Dalvik is not correct — Wikipediam, being user-generated is of course riddled with these]. 🙂
Finnur checking our tire-pressure. One of our tires has a tendency to deflate veeeeery slowly, and then quite quickly.
Finnur by the other (southern) Dalvík sign.
Pretty view.
Our two workhorses.
Our back seat ‘entertainment’. 🙂
We then drove a bit south to visit Árskógssandur. There Adda and Finnur walked into the local brewery for a tour.
Filling a glass for Halli, Kaldi fan number one. 🙂
Halli, checking out his glass. He’d stayed outside with the kids in the car while the other two checked things out.
Meanwhile, I took the kids to the local playground.
Bjarki unnervingly high up. There was no way to drag the buoy-swing up there.
Anna hopped on it mid-ways down instead.
Probably the biggest tire-swing I’ve ever seen.
The Californian in me cataloged all the dangers on the playground.
Not a bad locale for a playground. Later on, Halli dropped off the other kids, and a little while later, two young girls joined us. One of them happened to live very close to Adda et al in the city-area. It’s a small country!
We ended the day by having dinner with Kata and Jói. (Adda and Halli had dinner with friends that were camping near by.) The dinner was lovely, and Kata then made life-long friends of Anna and Bjarki (again) by whipping up some cotton candy. 🙂
Back at home base, after a long day. Here Finnur is trying to get Anna and Bjarki to go up and into the house, instead of running after a local dog that liked to play with the kids!