notes and images
I wanted to write that a glacier is like a living thing, because of the noise it makes, that jarring, creaking sound of ice grinding against ice. But living is the wrong word because any given glacier today is dying. This was only a small one, but once it was bigger, and there is no going back.
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Feel the need to trim down a bit? Try this hike. I went in weighing 74kg. Seven days later, I was 62kg. In between, I’d lugged 30 kg up and down mountains, through rivers, across snow fields and volcanic plains. I’d eaten anything I could lay my hands on, including fish served through my tent window by an Icelandic child in the middle of a downpour. We saw sun, wind, rain and snow, just on the first day. And in all that time, I only had one shower. It was three minutes long and cost about five bucks. Welcome to the Laugavegur – Iceland’s famous and awesome trek.
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I don’t think we’ve ever been as wet as we were in Iceland. Or as cold. Or hungrier, more tired, or dirtier. I formed this judgement only two weeks in to a six week trip on a day it rained so hard for so long that I thought I would never be wetter than this. Late next night, as we moved our tent from a pool of water, beside a lagoon full of icebergs, I realised I was completely wrong in assuming that was the wettest as I’d ever be. No. With every new day, I was going to be wetter yet.
Even our Gore-tex wasn’t keeping the rain at bay. Would I ever be dry again?
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Dolphin watching is really cool – when you’re looking for dolphins. But when you go whale watching, you’re really after something bigger. You know, like a whale. These guys had a great guarantee – see a whale or your money back*. Being (back then, in 2005) smart lawyers, we checked the small print under that asterisk. “Whales includes dolphins”. Hmmm. Well, we’re here now, we thought. It’s the last day of the season. Maybe we’ll get lucky.
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August 2005. We’d left government office jobs in search of adventure. How did we end up back in government office jobs? After a few months doing that in London, we remembered why we’d left Australia and what we wanted. So on August 12th 2005, after some serious decisions, we took the train to Stansted and embarked on the journey that would ultimately deliver us to Beijing in February 2006. But that was still some way off. Our first stop: Iceland.
We soon discovered it was lucky we’d brought camping equipment and a whisperlite stove. Two burgers and fries at a rustic burger hut on the Reykjavik docks set us back over $60. Remember the days before the GFC wiped out Iceland’s banking sector and demolished its currency? We do. They were expensive! But it was a great place to travel. Read on to find out why.
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I learned a few things about birdwatching on the Faroe Islands. First, it’s pretty cool. Second, you don’t need an enormous lens to get some nice photos. I also discovered I can actually go on a boat without instantly getting seasick.
But what was really awesome about this leg of our Faroes trip was the dizzying sea cliffs at Vestmanna – the Vestmannabjørgini. (No, I have no idea how to pronounce that). Hundreds of meters of black volcanic sea cliffs, speckled green with outlandish tufts of bright turf, itself munched on by even more outlandishly surefooted sheep. Though we were late in the season, still scores of seabirds swooped and swirled around the cliffs, our boat, and us. Add a salty fresh sea breeze off the North Atlantic and one of the very few appearances of the sun, and the island of Streymoy gave us a few of our most memorable Faroes days.
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Last light. Last day of the trip, summer 2015. Despite the rain, it’s been a good one. So why was I running full speed away from the splendid view and back to the hotel? Because of something that happened ten years ago. Or, rather, didn’t. I saw a puffin.
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Beauty?
Oooohhh
Nólsoy
is so pretty
they say
every day
because they have
nothing else
to look at.
…Oddfríður Marni
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Sadness pervades the whole story of Skarð. A hundred years ago, 1913 to be precise, it was a hard-scrabble fishing village like so many on the Faroes. No roads linked it to larger settlements, just a dangerous walk over the rocky mountain ridge to Kunoy on the other side, or a path down the fjord to Haraldssund several miles south. The land scarcely supports the grass the sheep graze on, so fishing was the villagers’ main source of food and income. Just 23 souls lived here, and only seven were fishermen.
Two days before Christmas that year, the seven set out in their boats as usual. In those days of course, fishing boats were sailed or rowed. There was no radio, radar, GPS or EPIRB. Just a man, his wits, and his raw strength stacked against what Shackleton called “the ocean that is open to all and merciful to none, that threatens even when it seems to yield, and that is pitiless always to weakness”.
They never returned. Lost with all hands.
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For me, said my wife afterwards, the Faroes isn’t so much a place to do things as it is a place to feel. “I just enjoyed the different soundscape – the sound of the wind, the sea, the birds. The rain, the roar of the sea. Breathing the sweetness of the fresh air. Drinking live water, straight from the earth. It seems like there’s not much going on, but there’s actually a lot going on if you just open your senses. What’s going on in Tórshavn? Not bars and cafes or any of that, but the smells of nature. Constant movement in the weather. The walk back to the hotel past that little brook”.
She’s right. Fog, wind, rain and lush green mountains with so many waterfalls they don’t even bother to name the big ones. You feel alive, part of nature instead of separated from it by seven ring roads. And that’s how it felt nearly the whole time we were there – to be alive in a place that was alive.
Welcome to Føroyar – the Faroe Islands.
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