Day 178-Haminjudagur í Hólmavík

Kleifar farm and Gullfoss waterfall at the head of Gilsfjörður.

   June 30-We got up and slowly got around to leave this morning.  We finally got on the road a little before noon and headed over Brettabrakka to Buðardalur, where we stopped at the ever-dependable N1 station for snacks and coffee.  Then we drove north, detouring around Gilsfjörður just to see what it looked like.  As is true throughout Iceland and particularly in the West Fjords, the scenery was stunning.  We even got to see some ducklings.

View of Snæfellsnes peninsula (including Snæfellsjökull) from Gilsfjörður.

Our blue kids fit into the blue section of town quite well.

   We headed back across the neck of the West Fjords towards Hólmavík to attend the Haminjudagur í Hólmavík, which was basically the town’s annual celebration.  It has become a widespread tradition around Iceland to divide up towns into sections, each of which is assigned a specific color.  In the case of Hólmavík, there were red, orange, and blue sections, and the rural areas comprised the yellow section.  Many of the residents put up decorations with their section’s colors and painted rocks their color as well.  We started to watch the play, Puss in Boots, put on by an acting troupe out of Reykjavík.  It was fun, but we had a difficult time following the play, so we wandered away after a while to visit the handiwork booths.
   We walked along the harbor and over to an art exhibition.  When we walked in, we were met by Jóhanna, who is one of the gals who serves us regularly at Geirabakarí, which is the bakery we really like in Borgarnes.  Her mom, Björk, is an artist who is from Hólmavík originally.  Jóhanna has started painting and making collages as well and this was her first show.  It was fun to run into someone we knew.  Everyone was hungry and Jóhanna recommended Café Riis, which is run by her uncle, so we stopped in for a late dinner.

Gaui and Shan next to whale rib bone bench.

   While we were eating, Gaui called to let us know that he and his family had made it up from their farm.  They were the ones who had told us about the festival and invited us up to this part of Iceland to spend a few days.  We followed them around the rest of the day.  Gaui’s cousin runs a handiwork shop in town and we stopped in there before going back to her house so a friend could record a song that Gaui sang while his cousin accompanied him with a guitar.  It was a song that he had sung at Magga’s 50^th birthday last weekend, and they wanted to send a CD with it to a friend of theirs.  Then we headed up to the local N1 station for supper.
   While we were ordering, Sigrún arrived in town.  Her two children, Brindís and Gunnhildur, have been staying at Bifröst, mostly with Gaui and Magga, since she made the move to Reykjavík a few weeks ago.  She was fortunate that her drive from Reykjavík to Hólmavík took her through the Borgarfjörður region, because the powers-that-be still thought that she lived at Bifröst, so she had to go to the polling station at Varmaland to vote in today’s Presidential election.  Yes, that is right, Iceland had a Presidential election as well this year.  However, it is a much different affair than in the U.S.  There were nearly ten candidates, none of whom were associated with a specific political party, and campaigning for the office only began in late May!  How we wish that would be the case in the U.S.  We are not sure we want to watch the television at all once we get back home.
   In any event, the incumbent President, Ólafur Grímsson, won a fifth four year term in office.  Traditionally, the office of the President is mostly a ceremonial position, but Ólafur has been a bit more active than his predecessors.  Namely, he has refused to sign a couple laws, forcing them to be voted upon by the entire Icelandic electorate.  Since these laws were both rejected by the citizenry, his actions have made him relatively popular, although he did not win the election particularly decisevely.

Gunnhildur, Alex, and Brindís put the lupine to good use.


   We all ate and then headed back to the center of town for a variety of different local singing acts.  Most of the ladies in town had made cakes and other desserts and they were on a table for anyone to eat, so we joined the line and judiciously selected small samples of many of them to try.  It was delicious.

Dessert and entertainment were served up in this natural ampitheater.

   The last group of ladies finished singing around 11 pm and we drove south along the coast for about 40 minutes to get to Óspakseyri.  Gaui grew up at the farm Einfætingsgil a few miles away and bought Óspakseyri to start farming for himself in the early 1980s.  Unfortunately, he could not make it work and finally sold his sheep in the late 80s, but he was able to keep the farmhouse and the associated ten square miles of pastureland.  We settled in while the kids jumped on the trampoline.  Everyone sat down for a final dessert a little after midnight and then the kids and adults hit the sack around 1 am.

The view to the north around midnight on the drive back to Óspakseyri.