An exploration of Eysturoy

No hotel moving today, so it was a round trip we planned. (Well, as round as you can get somewhere with few roads and many interesting places).

The first place today was Elduvik – a very attractive village, though like so many, with a reducing population. Small fishing villages just can’t compete either with the large fishing fleets, or the demands of remote living generally. 

This village, though, did have some life in it, as well as empty houses. The next stop, which was a bit of a drive to see some rather uninspiring ‘rocking stones’ (they sway with the tide, but not much). The drive in was another spectacular one, though, so more than made up for it. Next, it was south to Runuvik, where we managed to find a “real” coffee shop (albeit with rather rubbish coffee) before heading to a lake that was meant to have good birdlife, but the fog meant we didn’t see much. 

We returned to Gjógv, and went for a walk up the hill to see over the village. By now, the mist had cleared, and we had a spectacular view of the valley, village and fjord beyond. There were many birds nesting on the cliffs – we even saw (fleetingly) a pair of puffins 🙂 Our day was made! 

Back down to the village for another coffee, though the size of the (paper) cup made us realise that beer would have been a better option. The evening meal that night was a Faroese buffet. They’re not great at vegetarian food, and Janine wasn’t over impressed with the dried fish or whale blubber … (at least we didn’t get the smoked puffin we’d heard reports of!) 

September 3rd: West to Tofino.

A stunning start to the day – no books for breakfast, it was back to the bird, this time a heron. Then set off for Tofino. We found the first road that let us (legitimately!) do 120kmph. Then headed inland, across the island, stopping at Cathedral Grove, one of the sites of old growth rain forest. The trees were huge!
The road then got ever windier, (er, more bendy!); before we finally got to the West Coast, and Pacific Rim National Park, which, as the name suggests, runs along the Pacific coast. After a short paddle, we arrived at our hotel, yet another with a stunning sea view, this time west, so we arrived in plenty of time for sunset, having seen the early sun (if not rise) over breakfast.