Off to new islands

Saturday, 07.08.2021

The food has been in the bus since yesterday, fortunately. Today we leisurely pack our clothes, I bake one last bread, and my brother visits us at noon on his way back from his honeymoon in Norway. In the afternoon, I run errands in the neighboring village and pick up eggs from the chicken farm, so we finally leave at half past three.

The first stop is only 30 minutes away - Covid-19 testing center. But after that, we make good progress until we treat ourselves to a take-away pizza for dinner in Central Germany (Eisenberg). Ben had to endure several hours in heavy rain as the driver. We would have liked to sit in a restaurant, but one is on vacation and the other one already closed its kitchen at eight o'clock. It's not very lively here, but the alleys with the half-timbered houses look quite nice in the sunset.

We stop at the edge of a forest overlooking Hildesheim around midnight. Besides two other campers, there's nothing going on here, very pleasantly quiet.

Sunday, 08.08.2021

We start leisurely around 10 o'clock and head north. Today, I'm driving and Ben gets to relax. The weather is changeable and we encounter quite a lot of traffic between Hanover and Hamburg. Instead of one long lunch break, we make several short stops and munch on a pack of pretzels during the drive.

In the late afternoon, we cross the border to Denmark without any problems and drive all the way up north to be close to the ferry. It's pouring rain again on our way through Denmark, but we are greeted with dry weather and a rainbow upon arrival. We find a nice, simple campsite so that we have internet tomorrow for work, and treat ourselves to a wonderful hot shower and an Asian noodle soup.

At 11 o'clock in the evening, we get a nice surprise: two friends who drove from Munich to Denmark today and will take the ferry to Norway tomorrow, stay overnight with us at the campsite. We have a cozy evening in their VW T4 with wine, beer, and cookies.

Monday, 09.08.2021

After breakfast, we say goodbye to our friends who are heading to the ferry. It occasionally drizzles, but the sun also shines through and creates a pleasant temperature. We have to work today, so we sit with our computers in the common room. The room has a concrete floor that makes it much colder than outside, so after a few hours, we're quite chilled. After a snack at noon, I continue working in the bus where the temperature is better. The Wi-Fi here at the campsite is good, so everything is working fine so far, and it's quite cozy in the bus.

In the afternoon, we want to explore the area, but it's raining quite heavily. We quickly go shopping at the Spar and then drive to the beach, where some people walk past us in shorts and with ice cream in hand despite the 16 degrees and rain. I'm not quite used to this weather in August yet.

After spending 10 minutes in the parking lot, we finally realize that we can drive onto the beach with the car, and we spend some time in the rain at the beach, looking out at the gray sea. We also listen to an audiobook recommended by my dad (Die Irren mit den Messern). I'm curious if we'll get used to this weather. Usually, I'm too impatient for audiobooks, but currently, it's good to be forced to relax a bit.

For sunset, we drive to Råbjerg Mile, a wandering dune, and take a nice, sandy evening walk in the dry. It was necessary and feels good. We find a nice little campsite for the night, actually just a meadow behind a house, with a small bathroom building and a few horses.

Tuesday, 10.08.2021

We leave for Hirtshals to catch the ferry at 9 o'clock sharp. The loading and check-in process takes almost two hours. Our 2-bed outside cabin is small but neat and clean, so after a quick shower, we go to the cheaper restaurant for lunch. We booked the lunch buffet for today and tomorrow, so we don't have any more meals included. We have plenty of snacks and packed food for the rest of the time. Unfortunately, none of the six main courses at the buffet are vegetarian, and when I help myself to some pizza for the kids, there's trouble. Quite disappointing, I'm left with only salad. We explore the entire ship in the best weather and sit on deck for a while, enjoying the sun. Ben took his motion sickness medicine in time, and everything is fine so far.

In the afternoon, we spend a long time lying in bed in the cabin and continue listening to the audiobook. For sunset, we take a walk on deck, let ourselves be blown by the wind, and take a few photos.

Wednesday, 11.08.2021

In the morning, we see the Shetland Islands as we wake up. Right after a small breakfast in the room, I grab my laptop and sit in the top café on deck 10 to work. I even booked a WLAN package on the ferry, but it doesn't work very well. The connection is simply too slow. I try for a few more hours, but in the afternoon, I'm really frustrated. Not only have I been struggling with extremely slow or not loading pages all day, I also haven't been able to get much work done, of course. I had to reschedule my appointments, which means I'll have to work from Iceland again in the next few days, even though it was supposed to be only 2 days a week.

Tense and annoyed, I go out into the wind and watch Ben taking photos until it gets too cold for me. Yoga would be good now, but I left my mat in the car. We find some distraction in the early evening when the ferry makes a stop at the Faroe Islands and we get a beautiful view of the green-black slopes and the capital, Torshavn. To distract our thoughts from work even more and to start our vacation, we treat ourselves to something we wouldn't normally do: we rent one of the three hot tubs, which are filled and heated fresh every evening.

So at 8 o'clock, we walk through the ship like kings in borrowed bathrobes, with red wine and snacks in tow, and then slide into the hot water. The view is fantastic, occasionally we step out into the whistling wind to cool off, and the tension slowly fades away.

Freshly showered, we go to the bar on deck 10, where a Faroese musician plays good, rocky covers live with his rough voice and guitar. We strike up a conversation with an Icelandic photographer who has lived in Switzerland for a long time and is planning to offer a course on how to knit an Icelandic sweater.

Thursday, 12.08.2021

Since we had a lot of fun with the live musician last night, we have a hard time getting out of bed today. But the cabin has to be vacated by 8:30 because we will arrive at our destination, Seyðisfjörður, soon.

When we leave the ferry, it's 8 degrees outside, and the fog is low and dense over the town. So I don't feel any vacation mood, especially not for camping. We briefly check out the place, and Ben can hardly bear my whining anymore.

We drive over a hill a bit further into the countryside and take a half-hour walk to our first waterfall, Hengifoss, after a much-needed snack. Surprisingly, the fog has completely disappeared on this side of the hill, and the sun is shining down from a blue sky. Suddenly, it's bright, warm, and beautiful. We hike in T-shirts, and I'm confused but happy.

Back at the parking lot, the thermometer shows 20 degrees. There's still a cool wind, but the sun is so warm that I even treat myself to an (outrageously expensive) ice cream from the food truck. Since I still have some work to do today, we park at a visitor center and sit with our laptops for a while. On our way to the next destination, we drive on the first off-road gravel tracks and pass a dam. Before the dam, a white bus stops us briefly, and a young guy in a reflective vest tells us that we can drive over the dam, but we can't stop or take any photos. When we ask why, he replies that there is "Construction" going on there. The quotation marks he signals with his fingers confuse us, but we'll see. At the end of the dam, we finally get the answer: there's a film set. Unfortunately, we can't make out any details.

In the evening, we find a parking lot where there's supposedly a hot spring. There are a few more cars here, and we walk along the footpath for a while until we come across a steaming stream. A little further on, the hot stream falls into a several-meter-wide pool where a handful of people in bathing suits are sitting. It looks magical. Of course, we didn't bring our swimsuits because we wanted to explore the place first.

After a windy cooking session, we're so freezing that we actually want to go straight to bed. The sun is almost setting when we remember the hot bath. We pack our things, walk to the pool, and sit in the hot tub as darkness falls until we get all wrinkled. It's wonderful, and we have the place all to ourselves so late at night. Feeling cozy, we quickly slip into our sleeping bags.

Friday, 13.08.2021

To attend my rescheduled meetings, we drive back a bit in the morning until we have reception and work from there for a few hours. There's a dense, damp layer of fog around us, but it's bearable in the wind-protected car. Before we finally leave, we dash down to the hot natural pool again at noon and warm up. At the bathing spot, the hot stream merges with an ice-cold river, and we briefly dip into the cold water to cool down after being heated up. Kneipping in its most original form.

For the rest of the day, we drive a lot on off-road tracks with a few small fords (river crossings) all the way to the northeast of the island. At a small gas station that also serves as a café, mini-mart, and hardware store, we buy a new taillight bulb and a single screw for some repairs. In Raufarhöfn, we park at our first campsite - a meadow bordered by a windbreak wall. There are two toilets and a heated shower in a small container - very useful given the unpleasant temperatures.