BEGINNING THE JOURNEY SOUTH

We left the beautiful Siglufjordur with heavy hearts this morning.  It was just so beautiful to look out over & we'd enjoyed every minute.  However, there was another body of water that we were destined for this morning.  It was man made, but naturally heated & allegedly with a view to go gaga over!

Hofsos was a small village on a cliff side looking out over Skagafjordur.  It has a small swimming pool, which is in the Top 10 swimming places in Iceland! Consequently, because it was so popular we were a little worried there'd be too many people to be able to enjoy the view.  We needn't have worried.  This was one exquisitely located swimming pool & we enjoyed doing a few laps, as well as gazing out over the water & then soaking in the hot tub.  What a way to start the day.  

Back on the road, with the bathing suits drying on top of the luggage in the back, our next stop was Saudakrokur.  We had that on the itinerary because it was supposed to be a pretty seaside town.  That wasn't quite how we'd describe it, but we soon found a couple of treasures to make us glad we'd stopped here.
The first was the Bakery!  Not just any bakery... although a lot of the merchandise could probably be found anywhere... this one has been around since the late 1800s.  It was founded by Carl Fredrickson, who introduced a few new machines to the baking process & before long had the most prestigious bakery in Iceland.  He didn't have a family, so when he died, he left it all to his employees!  On the walls were some very old hand written recipe books as well as some old printed books on cooking.  I resisted the temptation to tug them off the walls & leaf through them!!!!

The other surprise in Saudarkrokur, was the Puffin & Friends exhibition.  From the appearance of the outside, we really didn't know what to expect... except that Puffins would feature strongly!!  Inside, we were given a personalised tour through a series of displays, featuring film & visual display.  We learnt about the waters around the area & what animals & birds hang out nearby.  We also learned about the types of pollution that are having an impact here.  Plastic & nets being the major culprits.  Then it was puffin learning time!

We learnt so much about Puffins through film, a cross section of a burrow & statistics showing how their numbers have been falling in recent years, as water temperatures rise.  One of the things I found particularly interesting was that Puffins spend 7 months of their year bobbing around on the North Atlantic ocean.  Whilst they are there, they shed their bright coloured beak & their lovely white face feathers are replaced with ash colour around the eyes!
After that we had a 360 degree virtual reality experience.  In a dark room we put on these super goggles & watched a film which enabled us to see all around us... if we moved our chair.  To be honest, we expected more Puffin interaction, but what completely blew us away was that we got to experience an Aurora Borealis!!! In SUMMER!!

Back on the road again, I was very excited to be able to FINALLY get a smiley face speed sign photo.  It's the little things...!!!

On entering Blonduos, our plan was to go for a walk around Hrutey Island.  However, when we arrived the track was closed because the local birds were nesting in the area & some of those birds were geese, who are not very friendly towards people traipsing around near their nests!  So we just had to sit on a bank opposite the island to eat our lunch.  The sun was shining, we were wrapped up in thick jackets to combat the cold wind & it was bliss.  A glance down showed us a woman sitting weaving in the sun, listening to the water.  I couldn't blame her, it was a restful place in which to be creative.

Blonduos has recently had a knitting festival & as a result the light poles are all dressed in knitting, a little like yarn bombing in Australia, but a lot of the pieces here were knitted people, with faces!  They were charming.

The reason we were here was to see the textile museum.  In a beautiful modern building we walked from room to room viewing examples of needlework & National Costume.  There was a beautiful exhibition by a felt artist, which looked fabulous displayed on the white walls.
The real treasure though, were the rooms in memory of Halldora Bjaraddottir.  She was a woman who valued the needle plied arts & she collected & taught needlework (amongst other things).  She championed women & did a lot to get them recognised for their handwork in the homes.  She left her belongings to the Textile Museum.

One of the things she collected were the handknitted insoles for shoes, which I have become particularly enamoured with.

Then I had a super super SUPER treat!  It isn't open to the public yet, but I had emailed ahead to see whether I could just pop in & have a look at the Vatnsdaela tapestry.  This is the brain child of Johanna Palmadottir & is a tapestry inspired by the Bayeux  Tapestry in France, but about a local family's saga.  It ends in the century that the Bayeux begins.  Exquisite is te only word for the few metres I saw of it.  She hopes it will be finished in 2026.  They manage to complete 3 metres a year!! I felt richly blessed!!

As if that wasn't enough, we were looking out over the beautiful waters of the Hunafjordur Fjord, when we saw... a whale wave to us!