Day 5, Aug 29 Hvammstangi to Siglufjor

The heat quit overnight so it was chilly in the morning; stove worked. Breakfast of enhanced oatmeal and broke camp. Headed north on the 711, which soon turned into gravel - and a rough gravel, at that. Continued slowly around the Vatnsnes Peninsula past more lonely farms with their white covered hay bales dotting the fields over rolling lowlands off the slopes of the inland buttes. Waterfalls punctuate the slopes. Swung around the north tip, still following the (somewhat better) gravel.

South along the coast brought us to Hvitserkur, a lava intrusion standing tall above the waters of the fiord. We stopped along with all the other tourists to gawk at the rock. Leaving there we came upon a horse riding group on the road. Horse riding vacations are popular and we've seen many troops out and around. A bit more gravel before we crossed east to catch the 1, again. Headed north and pulled over in a roadside rest before Blonduos, where we stretched and made sandwich lunch. Through Blonduos and turned southeast following the Ring Road. Climbed up the Langi Valley and over the ridge into broad valley that dumps into the Skagafjorthur. Stopped for the magnificent view before crossing the valley and turning north along the fiord. Followed the 76 along the coast, admiring the rock buttes standing in the fiord. Similar stark, lonely landscape as we curved around one lobe of the Trollaskagi (the Troll Peninsula). Dipped Into one small fiord then around another lobe, through a one-lane tunnel and into Siglufjorthur.

This once isolated harbor was the center of the hearing and cod fishing industry for six decades, starting around 1900. After some searching, we found the campground in the middle of town. Set up, walked around and had (expensive) dinner at the Siglo Hotel. Back to camp to relax and get showers. This was the first campground with showers since Geysir. Great to be clean! Heat working fine as we called it a night.

Some things I think I know about reading and pronouncing Icelandic. The "j" should be thought of as an "y" for pronouncing and for translating. Icelandic has two Nordic language letters that both seem to be pronounced as "th." One is a capital D with a horizontal bar across the vertical stem of the D. This occurs often near the end of a word.
An example is Icelandic for fiord - "fjorDur." (I write it as "fjorthur") So the place we are, Siglufjorthur, means "Siglu Fiord" or the fiord of the Siglu River.   The other looks like a Roman capital "I" with a smaller capital D stuck to the right center - maybe like a pooped out P. This usually comes at the front of the word. Many place names start with "Thor." This is a tribute to the Norse god of the same name. The Thingvellir Park uses this letter. I also see the place names tend to string together attributes. An example is the peninsula we went out after Borganes, Snaefellnes. I deduced that "nes" means peninsula and "fell" means mountain, so the translation is sort of, "the peninsula of the Snae mountain."Leggi altro