Waiting for the midnight sun

 The next time you hear me having a minor rant about all those tourists running around with D-SLR's, please remember to take me to one side and give me a sound beating (jealousy is never a pretty thing). I'd give my right arm for a camera with a better zoom and more manual controls! You could even have my Prolite as down payment... until then, "become one with the tripod, grasshopper!"

'Artistic' angst aside it's been a good couple of days, I left Ísafjör∂ur Wednesday morning on yet another bus, this time to Hólmavík. I'm still getting used to this no nighttime lark and for some reason am beginning to find it easier to nap on the buses, than sleep longer than 4-6hrs when I should. Luckily bus drivers in Iceland aren't about to let you miss out on any truly beautiful sights or cool things that occur. Which is why I still got to see the seals that were playing/feeding in the fjord.

There were about 8-10 of them after a while and they were much closer to shore than the photo makes them look! I'm such a child I had serious happy 'clappy' attack and must have looked like a total idiot to the other people in the bus. Frankly I couldn't give a monkeys though, how often will I see something that beautiful in a lifetime?

We also stopped at Reykjanes on the way. Standing next to the broken concrete of the hot water tank, watching Arctic Terns hover and smelling fresh mint (it was growing next to the tank) was refreshing enough to keep me awake for the rest of the bus journey. I could have done with a quick dip in the pool they had there too!

Hólmavík is a another village that relies on the sea, only in this case it seems to be more shrimping than fishing. It's got a really cool exhibition on Witchcraft and Sorcery in a turf roofed structure on the harbour. I found it really interesting, particularly the props they had to explain some of the most commons spells. This is obviously the only reason I found myself studying the intact (and anatomically correct) skinned lower half of a male for a good 20 minutes. Whilst the handy English mp3 guide explained about the sorcerous uses for it. I'm not spoiling the fun, go and see it for yourself...

Anyway, I was also wondering if anyone else thought it was strange that the local church has a Witches hat for a steeple?

2 hours later and we're back on the bus, this time heading for Sta∂arskáli. It's only a two hour journey this time (it was 4.5hrs to Hólmavík) and before I feel asleep (again), all I could see on the shore line was driftwood. Piles of it. Apparently its a lot less than they used to get but it still seemed like a fossilized forest on the shore. When I woke up in Sta∂arskáli we'd completely left the beautiful mountains of the Westfjords behind and were in more of a rolling hills and wide valley area. Not that it wasn't pretty but it all seemed a bit of an anticlimax really. Even more so when we all realised that Sta∂arskáli is actually a petrol station, with about 5 houses in the distance and the Route 1 going by it. That's pretty much it for 40km's or so.

As it was only about 7pm by this point and there were no buses until the following morning, I decided to hitch again. It's easier to do on Route 1 as there's more traffic. This time I managed to hitch a lift within about 30 seconds of sticking my thumb out (I could get to like this). I ended up hitching with Harauldur (at least I think that's the spelling, it sounded more like Hruder to me though) who was on the way back to Akureyri after staying with his girlfriend in Finland. He was great for conversation and told me about his hiking/snowmobile trips near Dalvik, I am definitely going to try a couple of them. At least when I'm on my own no-one can see me blub when I hit the height/drop/splat threshold. If you've got any suggestions on how to stop the panicky tears, let me know. Oh and not doing it, isn't an option!

Whilst you're thinking of some suitably smart retorts, here's a quick peak on the view from the car heading towards Varmahlí∂, where Harauldur dropped me off.

The only reason I didn't got all the way to Akureyri with him, is because I'm determined to see as much of Iceland as possible and risked missing out on another little chunk if I did. So instead, I picked a little spot by the river and pitched up.

That beautiful sunshine you see? 10:30pm. How cool is that? Not so cool was the heavy rainstorm at 3am or the wake up call by some curious swans at 5:30am Still seeing as the scene above had changed only slightly (i.e. a bit wetter) by the time I gave up on sleeping and peaked out the door around 6ish I wasn't that upset. I think it's wrong to be so happy on so little sleep sometimes.

Sitting outside the gas station (why do I feel so american saying that?) waiting for them to open, meant that I managed to see the street theatre involved in moving 3 very large, already built houses, by lorry.

See, and we think we have it bad with caravans...

So drama over and I thought I'd walk to Sau∂árkrókur, it's only about 20km up from Varmahlí∂. After all I meant to be doing some walking whilst I'm here. Anyway about an hour later, whilst admiring the horses and singing along to my ipod (it was just me the sheeps and horses, no one's going to complain when I hit the odd bum note...) I was offered a lift from Helga who was off visiting her daughter in Sau∂árkrókur. Well I had managed a whole hour...

Sau∂árkrókur is a fairly big town in comparision to some of those I'd been in recently. They have an amazing amount of drying racks filled with fish on the harbour, it stretches for at least a couple of hundred metres.

It's a pretty potent aroma up close too. Pretty church and good views from the cemetary across the fjord (is it still called a fjord when its this wide?)

Other than that, it was pretty sleepy. Well apart from the kids doing general gardening work around the town. It's something I've seen in almost every village/town in Iceland, it seems like a good idea.

Right, I should fill you in on the final leg of my journey to Siglufjör∂er but frankly I'm knackered and the guesthouse I'm staying in favours rooms like caves (Yes, darkness!) so I'm going to get some sleep. There might not be an update until Friday when I get to Akureyri, so catch you all then.
Bless