Flateyri to Drangsnes - August 31, 2019

After going to bed so early, I was awake at five!  That gave me lots of time to add photos to yesterday’s blog and do all that morning stuff so we could go down to breakfast around nine.  Much as I love the typical Icelandic tourist breakfast, I’m sure ready for a change!  The Raspberry Rendezvous tea is quite wonderful, though!  We chat for a while with another guest, then begin bringing our things out to the car.  You have to go up and down the stairs like a crab because they are narrow and steep, so it’s easier to make a couple of trips.  Also, we need to move everything out of the trunk, so the tire is accessible.

Christie comes back to the house and calls her brother’s friend to make sure he’s awake and to tell him that we’ll be there in about half an hour.  She gives us a map and tells us that we’ll have priority when we go through the one-way tunnel.  People coming the other way will have to pull into one of the pull-off.  We learn when we get there they they are plentiful and marked with a large capital M.

We ask her how much we owe her for the kids’ campsite last night and she says it was free.  How sweet!  And she’s been so much help with the tire, too!

We’re off to Isafjordur and nearly find the place!   We’re so close!!  We ask the trainer in the Cross Fit and she sends us just across the parking lot.  The garage-style door is just going up, so at least the young man hasn’t been waiting for us.  He find the leak very quickly and it’s NOT in the sidewall!  Yay!  Not a new tire in our future!  

My boots have sprung a leak, too.  The sole is coming lose all the way to the toe cap!  I ask him if he has any duct tape and he suggests we go to the hardware store that we can see from his doorway.  We’ve got fifteen minutes, so there’s ample time to go shopping.  The clerk there suggests a tube of wonder glue, instead of tape, and it’s cheaper, too, only a little less than nine dollars!  We’ve still got a few minutes so we wander around and find the Danish consulate!

Back to the repair shop and he is just finishing up.  Marilyn goes into the office to pay the one hundred and five dollar bill and I grab some cash to thank him for coming in on his day off to rescue us!

Now we’re ready to start our day!  Today we’ll be cling to the coastline of all the little fjords in Westfjords.  Our first stop is Sudavik, at the Arctic Fox Discovery Center.  We don’t recognize it because the name on the building is Melrakkasetur Islands!  Turns out the oldest written name in Icelandic for the foxes is melrakki!!  Who knew?

There are displays with the three different morphs (colors) of arctic fox and descriptions of the research which is being carried out.  And there are t-shirts.  But the best thing is that they have two orphaned foxes!  One is about four years old and the other is only eight weeks old!  What a cutie!!

When we can tear ourselves away, we get back on the road and head to the tip of another fjord where there are seals laying on a rock, sunning themselves, and four very shaggy sheep on the land.  The seals must stay there because the government has build a lovely path down to a viewing area.  And some enterprising person has left some home made preserves and a cash box, should anyone feel peckish!

Christie also said we might see whales along here;  but try as we might, not answered our call.

Next we head to Holmavik and the Museum of Magic and Witchcraft.  They have a restaurant and we both have the “meat soup” which is mostly a vegetable soup with carrots, celery, onions, and black olives.  Oh, and there are some chunks of meat (lamb??).  After filling out tummies we tour the museum and learn about the really bizarre things that seventeenth-century Icelanders believed!

And there’s a gift shop.

Our last stop of the day is our guest house, Malorhorn,  We have a tiny room;  but it opens onto a large common area with a table, full kitchen, sofas and a tv!  Unfortunately the wifi is basically non-existent.  I’m hoping I’ll be able to post this in the morning from their restaurant, during breakfast!