A relatively quiet day today, no spectacular pictures, but we did have a nice hike into the hills around Sey­ðis­fjörð­ur. And ended it with a superb meal.

We had breakfast at the hotel, and then split into two groups. Erling took John and Diane, and also Kevin and Margie on a long walk up, around a mountain, and back down. this was advertised to involve walking through almost knee-deep snow, and fording a stream by taking off your shoes and savoring the good glacial water and its effects on your peripheral circulation, if any remained. Mark had actually bought a pair of gaiters for this adventure, as well as special open shoes to protect the soles of his feet from the pebbles. But when the chips were down, he wasn’t any more enthusiastic than I was.

The rest of us went on a walk with Kristín around the town of Sey­ðis­fjörð­ur, to be followed by a foray into the brush. We were met by a local guide named Óla Maja, who would tell us about the various houses and structures in the town—none very old—and also some­thing about the town’s history and commercial ac­tiv­ity.

In the first group of seven pictures, the top left (big image, small) is a sculpture made from girders from a factory as they were bent in an avalanche that befell the town 1885. In the middle of that row is the local church (big image, small), which I think Mark has a rather better picture of; and the right snap in the row (big image, small) shows only one of the very many waterfalls that could be seen from the town. (Mark tells me that this is not the water­fall that some of us went to later in the day.)

Below the top row, that’s Shirley and Barbara, with partial views of Gisele and Óla Maja, and behind them you can see any number of mountain rivulets (big image, small). And in the next three images, pictures of Sey­ðis­firð­ings’ houses, all evidence of the strait­ened cir­cum­stances of the Icelanders, up till the most recent times. (Right picture in second row: big image, small; bottom left: big image, small; bottom right: big image, small.) In the first of these three pictures, you see Óla Maja in the green jacket.

We walked down the fjord, that is, towards the ocean, away from the town, in preparation for taking a right to go up into the hills. In the next block of pictures, to the right, another pair of houses (left: big image, small; right: big image, small), and then two views across the fjord. You can see especially well in the left-hand one how subject to avalanches the terrain there must be (big image, small). In the right one (big image, small), there we are walking along the road towards the place where we would turn right up into the rising landscape on this side of the fjord.

About a half-hour lat­er, we were well up, able to look down on the town in the dis­tance. In the block of pictures to the left, you can see how high we are (big image, small). To the right of that, Gisele is taking wild-flower pictures (big image, small), and in the row below, Lady Smock (big image, small), and, at the lower right, the waterfall (big image, small) that was our hoped-for destination.

Big image, small.

Big image, small.

Big image, small.

Two more botanical shots to the right: Crowberry, and below that Wooly Willow.

We climbed up and up, and the going got tougher and tougher. I was kind of hoping we could give up on our aim of getting to that waterfall, when Kristín said that those who wanted should follow her back down to the street level. I was really glad to do this! The vegetation was surprisingly thick, lots and lots of Lupine, in fact this is where I saw how the dead stalks from previous years could clog up the underlevel, and smother any small local plants that might have grown there before.

Óla Maja, Jerye, and Mark come down from the heights (big image, small).

In the distance, Shirley, Paul, and Kristín investigate kayak rental (big image, small).

Those of us who didn’t go all the way to the waterfall got down to the street level before long, and waited for the more adventurous ones—Óla Maya, Jerye, and Mark—to come down. Then we walked along the street back to town, and Kristín pointed out various places we might have dinner that night, since this was to be an evening out on our own. Mark and I didn’t need any suggestions, though, since we had our hearts set on that delicious-looking rack of lamb that we had seen the night before.

Having had a fine packed-up lunch on the trail, namely gravlaks sand­wich and a banana, we had no need of any food, and Mark and I just went back to our room for a shower and a little rest before we stoped in at a bistro that Kristín had pointed out, where we enjoyed coffee and pastry while we worked on our journals.

At supper-time, we went to the hotel restaurant full of anticipation. We had an excellent appetizer of gravlaks, rather unusually cut thick. And it was delicious. Then the suspense before the lamb came, and when it did, it was divine. Mark has pictures to make you envious. Dessert was simple, maybe a little disappointing, but anything at all would have been an anticlimax after the main course.

And then to bed, while it was still very bright.