Day 8: Stykkisholmer to Bildudalur

Getting up to pack up the bikes, bike down to the ferry, biking back to camp to get Austin's forgotten towel, and making the 8:30 ferry was easy after our short day on the bike yesterday. The ferry across Breidafjordur (broad fjord) took about three hours (broad indeed) and treated us to views of thousands of little islands. We have since spotted signs for Breidavik ("broad bay") and Einbrein Bru ("unbroad bridge") and were quite proud of our progress in the language.

Upon disembarking in the West Fjords, we biked right past the "bus" that we booked for an afternoon excursion to beautiful bird cliffs while looking for our bus. We figured it out eventually, and even managed to get our bikes bungeed securely and our panniers safely in a trailer. The cliffs of Latrabjarg are the western-most tip of Europe - just 300 km from Greenland (we convinced ourselves that we saw an outline of some land at one point). We're certainly not the biggest ornithology-philes, but this was magnificent for anyone. Up to 400 meter cliffs stretching kilometers down the coast are home to swarms of birds (but no terns!), our favorites of which were the puffins and guillemots. Their tame nature was reminiscent of the Galapagos and allowed us to get incredibly close - in fact, maybe a little too close. The strong winds and steep drops were enough to make your stomach turn...but this was only our second biggest fright of the day. The 45 km or so drive from the nearest town was on a gravel road, about 12 ft wide, that twisted and turned through the tough terrain between the fjords. Our driver had clearly done the drive before (we hope!), since we were slaloming around cautious tourists as though they were standing still. It was like a roller coaster ride with no rails. The few times he slowed down for a blind or hairpin turn were just as scary because if HE felt the need to slow down.... All well worth it!

We braved the return ride to Patreksfjordur (named for St. P!) to start biking for the day...at 6pm. Our potential stops of Talknafjordur and Bildudalur were 14 and 30 km away, respectively. Each of the three towns were separated by a veritable mountain. Our climb heading to Talknafjordur took us 56 minutes - like a spin class on permanently high tension. Feeling bold, and as though the next climb couldn't possibly be as bad, we went for Bildudalur. This climb took 81 minutes. We rolled into town (and by roll we mean use gravity, not our muscles) at about 9pm looking for the "campground near the golf course" - it was easy to find, but we could have asked any number of golfers still out of the links if we'd had any trouble.

We chatted with a nice guy who grew up in close by Grundarfjordur. He told us he started peeling shrimp in the local factory at 13 ("common 25 or so years ago when [he] was growing up"). He has since moved to Reykjavik, as most now do, and completed medical school. Bildudalur had about 450 people when he was a kid, and is now down to about 150. He thinks there will be many abandoned former fishing towns in our lifetime - the need to be closer to the best fishing waters no longer exists with current practices and technology.