Husavik, Iceland
Today we arrived in Husavik, where we were woken with an announcement telling us that we would be able to dock in the port instead of having to drop anchor and ferry everyone in by tender boat (yippeeeee!!!).
Once again, Tracey and I had the whole day to ourselves, with no escorting duties, and were delighted to see a very large hill rising up behind the small port town. At 417 metres, Husavik hill, locally known as Husavikurfjall, is an imposing feature in the surounding landscape. With the prospect of not having to mess about with tender boats and an all-aboard time of 6:30pm, we figured the summit was worth a shot.
As we left the Marco Polo, we purchased two bottles of water and some chocolate, and a free map given to us by the security officer in charge of swiping everyone off the ship, which rather conveniently highlighted all the available local footpaths.
The weather outside was cool, but not windy like yesterday, and the route heading out of town and up the hill was easy to find and follow. As we walked, we were accompanied by the weird sound of Snipe in their courtship dance, and Redwings (we know this because we googled them later). The footpath was well maintained and a pleasure to walk on, and short posts with symbols on them made sure we didn’t go astray.
The route up the hill had several different routes, denoted by different symbols. The ‘easy’ route had the shapes of two walkers in white, one large and one small, suggesting that it would be suitable for all abilities and ages. Another symbol of a single walker in light blue appeared from time to time, and a third symbol, aimed presumably at hardened hikers, was of a walker with hiking poles and rucksack, and painted in red. Naturally, we followed the ‘red man’ route for roughie-toughies, because who wants to be associated with namby-pamby white walkers?…
As it turned out, the ‘red’ route was a doddle. If anything, it got steep towards the later stages, but we were walking along a track designed for vehicles, that went the whole way to the summit, where there is a microwave station.
Interestingly enough, both Tracey and I have been having trouble obtaining a data signal from either of our two mobile phones. Surprisingly, even when we reached the summit and were standing right next to the communications mast, the lack of even the faintest signal seemed odd (this was rectified later…).
In all directions, the views were simply stunning. In one direction, we could gaze down upon the town of Husavik and the tiny Marco Polo berthed by the quayside. In the opposite direction, the snowy mountains stretched the whole width of the horizon, wild and spectacular. Below us, there was a large lake, and in the other direction, the land dropped down to the sea, where we could see a large hydroelectric power station. To complete the sense of achievement, we even had a light flurry of snow.
Never has a bottle of water and a Twix tasted so good.
When we bought them earlier in the morning, we thought that the chocolate and water would be our lunch. As it happened, we made good time getting to the summit, and the downhill route was so… efficiently downhill… that we actually made it back to the Marco Polo in time for lunch.
After lunch we took a more leisurely walk into town, in search of wi-fi, which we found at the Husavik Whale Centre.
Bugged and frustrated by the inability to get a data signal on either of our phones (yet still able to get a phone signal), both Tracey and I rang our respective phone network providers. After a short conversation with a technical advisor, turning the phone off and then on again, and resetting a few things, I achieved success. Tracey achieved the same success after speaking to a similar adviser, and then… ahem… turning the ‘Data Roaming’ switch on. In her defence, she’s recently had to perform a factory reset on her phone, which accounted for the data being in its default off position. Bottom line, though… we both suddenly have data on our phones, which we’re extremely pleased about; so, no more running around trying to find free wi-fi…
As the afternoon wore on, Husavik seemed to fall asleep. We learnt from the security guard on the quayside that today was in fact a Bank Holiday in Iceland, so we were lucky that anywhere had been open at all.
Soon after leaving port, the Captain announced the bad news that due to reports of unfavourable sea conditions, our next port stop has been cancelled. Instead, he will be sticking his foot down to get us to Reykjarvick early tomorrow evening. The knock-on effect of this is two-fold. It means, we’ll be spending two nights in Iceland’s capital city, but it also means that tomorrow has suddenly become a sea-day, so I’ll be running an unexpected painting class in the afternoon.
This evening, after watching Andy Leach’s show, we spent some time out on deck along with several other passengers, in the hope of seeing a whale. Husavik is known as North-East Iceland’s ‘Whale Capital’, and folks on the whale-watching excursions earlier in the day had been entertained by several of the magnificent beasts. All evening there’s been a desperate hope from many passengers that they might spot a whale from the ship, yet they remained as elusive as ever. The evening finished off in a very positive way, however; not only did we see the tell-tale spout of water from a whale’s blow-hole, but we saw its body break water, and then dive, with a classic ‘whale-tail’ finale… a thoroughly satisfying end to an excellent day!
