Seyðisfjörður, Iceland

We have arrived in Iceland; or ‘Islandia’ as they call it.

We sailed into Seyðisfjörður early in the morning accompanied by the most beautiful scenery of starkly picturesque slopes and colourful wooden houses. A scrumptious morning.

Seyðsfjörður is a tiny town (pop. about 700) at the end of a fjord with soaring mountains behind. It hosted the world’s first modern whaling station and also pioneered international communications in 1906 when it welcomed the first telegraph cable linking Iceland to Europe.

We did our walking tour of the town early - our guide was good: interesting and cheerful. The Icelanders seem to have a dark sense of humour … grim (and known as ‘Gálgahúmor’).

Our tour finished with a presentation at the local arts facility Herðurbreið by two local artists: Björt Sigfinnsdóttir and Jón Hilmar Kárason. She had a terrific voice and looked very Norse (blonde hair and all) and he harmonised beautifully with her and was great on guitar. They had a great program and I thought it really neat that they did a Björk (Guðmundsdóttir) song given she is one of Iceland’s most well-known singers.  

And this was all accompanied by a smorgasbord of local delicacies produced by one of the local chefs! Like Arctic char mousse (that was pronounced as ‘mouse’, goats cheese, smoked lamb …

We returned to the ship afterwards to get our gear ready for a hike; transport to and fro this morning is all done by tender as there is a huge ferry docked so our ship has to wait.

Plus there is another cruise ship so the town is FULL of people!

We set off to the Gufufoss (Gufu Waterfall). It turned out to be quite a hike.

As I said, it was a scrumptious day and we were lucky that some cloud settled in on the way up so there were some nice waterfall photos! 

It was uphill all the way and we managed to find the off-road path but also managed (along with others!) to go somewhat off-piste at one point necessitating a dramatic river crossing (boots and socks completely soaked) plus a scramble up a steep gully grabbing onto vegetation as we hoisted ourselves back to the path.

We slipped and slid in mud in various places but the waterfalls were awesome!

When we walked back into town, we visited the iconic wooden Blue Church (Seyðisfjarðarkirkja!) complete with (Instagrammable apparently) rainbow road leading up to it. It is a good example of traditional Icelandic architecture.

Back on board - hot tub for our sore legs and feet! And early dinner as we hadn’t really had lunch. Music Quiz in one of the lounges as the ship readies to sail.

It’s raining as we leave port. Then the sun comes out again half an hour later and there is a lovely sunset (9:19 pm).

Walked 17.8 kms.