Our Scotland trip actually consisted of three parts. The first one was a tour of Scotland and the Isles. The second part was the sail from Scotland to the Faroe Islands to Iceland, and the final leg was our leaving the Ocean Endeavour and travelling around Iceland by car before flying back home.
On June 24, 2023 we landed in Aberdeen and said goodbye to some of the friends we met on the Scotland trip. We opted to go into Aberdeen with the bus taking folks to the hotel before their departure for home. We wandered around for a bit, took a few photos and had lunch at a funky little fast food place. Then we opted to walk back to the ship. It was a very hot day and we stuck to the shade as much as possible. Our walk took us through treed neighbourhoods and at one point we passed a street festival complete with a steel band.
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| Lunch stop |
I don’t remember how it started but we met a man on the street and had a long conversation with him about Scotland and Canada. He walked with us for a few blocks and then turned toward his home. The people we meet while travelling are always one of the highlights.
When we got back to the ship we were able to watch them loading supplies for the next voyage. I enjoy that kind of stuff so I was perfectly happy standing at the rail watching huge pallets of food being loaded into the ship’s hold via the side doors. When I decided to go back inside the wind caught the door and slammed it on my left hand. I got ice on it right away and, luckily, I didn’t break anything although I had a definite lump for a while.
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| Loading through the side |
Our first stop on the crossing to Iceland was supposed to be Fair Isle. The winds had other plans and the seas were too rough to land so, instead, we took the zodiacs and toured the bird cliffs. I was glad we were able to visit Fair Isle earlier and I was happy enough to be on the water among the birds. When we got back to the ship I noticed my nose seemed to be dripping more than usual and by midafternoon my throat was feeling scratchy.
The next morning I went for a Covid test which turned out negative. The medic told me to come back if I felt worse the next day. I didn’t feel worse but opted to stay onboard while Richard took the opportunity to go into Kirkwall on Orkney Island. As I wandered around on deck I met one of the women from the first trip who had tested positive for Covid and had been isolating in her cabin for five days. Certainly not the way anyone wants to spend their holiday.
After leaving Scotland our next stop was the Faroe Islands. I love the Faroes. They are green and rugged with spectacular waterfalls and puffins. I’m happy anywhere I can watch puffins. I stuck close to the ship when we stopped in Vagur. I wandered around the town, did a bit of sketching and dropped into a coffee shop that was offering us free coffee, tea, and muffins. I chatted with Janet, a fascinating woman from the US. It was her 76th birthday and she shared some of her cake with me. She had been a social worker and then decided at the age of fifty to go back to school and become a lawyer so that’s exactly what she did. She was an excellent storyteller and I wish I had made better notes on some of the experiences she related.
The next morning I went for a Covid test which turned out negative. The medic told me to come back if I felt worse the next day. I didn’t feel worse but opted to stay onboard while Richard took the opportunity to go into Kirkwall on Orkney Island. As I wandered around on deck I met one of the women from the first trip who had tested positive for Covid and had been isolating in her cabin for five days. Certainly not the way anyone wants to spend their holiday.
After leaving Scotland our next stop was the Faroe Islands. I love the Faroes. They are green and rugged with spectacular waterfalls and puffins. I’m happy anywhere I can watch puffins. I stuck close to the ship when we stopped in Vagur. I wandered around the town, did a bit of sketching and dropped into a coffee shop that was offering us free coffee, tea, and muffins. I chatted with Janet, a fascinating woman from the US. It was her 76th birthday and she shared some of her cake with me. She had been a social worker and then decided at the age of fifty to go back to school and become a lawyer so that’s exactly what she did. She was an excellent storyteller and I wish I had made better notes on some of the experiences she related.
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| Torshavn near parliament buildings |
My cold hampered activities for about four days although I was left with a cough for a number of weeks after the main symptoms disappeared. In Torshavn I went on a photo walk. I find most serious photographers prefer to shoot in RAW because of the amount of control it gives them. I don’t really enjoy any sort of post processing which, I know, is essential to creating really stunning photos. I tend to blunder along, doing the best I can in the moment and enjoying myself. Also on Torshavn we had a lunch of traditional Faroese food. We tried air-dried lamb and fish, and fermented fish with mashed potatoes. That wasn’t my favourite dish.
One of the highlights of the Faroes was a trip toTorkilsheyggjsgarour Gjogv, a sheep farm near Runavik on the island of Eysturoy. By this time Richard had my cold so he stayed on board while I went to visit the sheep. It was quite an operation. They were well set up for visitors and had two sheds where the farmer or members of his family talked to the visitors and showed off some of his sheep. He was the sixth generation to run the sheep farm.
He told us that there is a set yearly cycle to raising the sheep. He has 200 sheep and eleven rams. The whole family helps with farming operations. On January 7 they collect all the rams and each ram services 30 sheep. It’s possible that the rams forget to eat during this period. During the winter sheep take shelter in sheep houses and the farmer knows that if the sheep are lying on the floor there is a big storm coming.
Spring brings lambing season and that year the last lamb was born on June 2. July is shearing season. On this farm they don’t use dogs to manage the sheep. He didn’t tell us exactly how they do it or I didn’t write it down. He did say that they shear the sheep by hand and it takes 8 - 10 minutes to shear a sheep . The wool from these sheep is white, light grey, dark grey, light brown, and dark brown; many of the garments for sale in the islands use wool in these natural colours.
October is the time for slaughtering sheep. Sheep are not sent away to a slaughter house. Five men slaughter the sheep and four women take care of what comes out of the sheep. [I’m not exactly sure what I meant by that but that’s what I wrote in my notes.] All the meat stays in the islands and is either dried or fermented. Fresh sheep meat comes in from Scotland. When the talk was finished they ushered us into another shed where there was hot chocolate, very welcome that day as it was rainy and chilly. In the meantime, the next group arrived and occupied the first shed.
Hot chocolate on board, we went for a walk around the property and saw the sheep in their natural habitat. It was rainy and I used all my rain gear and my gloves. Where there are sheep there is sheep poop and it became impossible to avoid it. We counted on being able to clean our shoes on the wet grass before we boarded the bus to take us back to the ship.
Other highlights of the Faroes included more conversations with Janet whose first husband was a theatre director. In addition to being a social worker and a lawyer, she was also a teacher. She was from Texas. We met a couple on deck who were also very interesting. He was a retired RCMP officer who spent 20 years in forensics. He said he had seen everything, photographed everything, testified in court about everything and just got burned out.
On the scenery front we paid a visit to Gasadalur Falls.
If you look up the Faroe Islands you’ll probably find a photo of Gasadalur as it is one of the more famous ones. We also took a boat tour of more bird cliffs. I don’t remember the circumstances but we couldn’t get to one of the islands we were scheduled to land on. In true Adventure Canada fashion we were treated to a very interesting plan B. We visited the island of Soruagur. [A note on the spelling of Faroese words: there are a number of symbols required to spell the words properly and I can’t find them so, with apologies to the Faroese, I’ve left them out.] Soraugur is privately owned by an outfitter but we got permission to land our zodiacs and wander around the island. One of the attractions for me was a series of fulmar nests that I could watch at fairly close range. I had fun trying to figure out the relationships between the various birds. Were they parent and chick or were they two parents? At times it looked like one pair in particular was involved in some sort of domestic spat. There were puffins but I didn’t think I’d get any better pictures than what I had managed on Fair Isle, so I concentrated on the other birds.
Our last day before reaching Iceland was a sea day with various presentations available. We landed on the island of Heimaey when we arrived in Iceland. We visited there in 2019 on our circumnavigation of Iceland. That is the island that saw a volcanic eruption in 1973. There is a great museum which included some of the houses that were partially destroyed by the lava flow.
The townsfolk managed to save some of the houses by using huge pumps to pump sea water which they sprayed onto the encroaching lava. One house is buried in lava except for the front porch which remains intact. Rather than spend time in the museum on this visit, we chose to hike up the volcano. Vents near the top were steaming and the ground was noticeably warm around them. From our vantage point on the top of the volcano we saw a plane fly below us and land on the airstrip.
Since Heimaey was our last stop before disembarking, we took the opportunity to get sim cards for our phones. I found an Icewear sweater and indulged in a licorice ice cream cone. I was hoping to have my fill of licorice ice cream while in Iceland but that wasn’t to be. From Heimaey we sailed to Reykjavik where we left the ship and struck out in a rented car. That’s for the next and maybe final blog post on the Scotland to Iceland trip of 2023. Stay tuned.
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| Traditional Faroese foods |
One of the highlights of the Faroes was a trip toTorkilsheyggjsgarour Gjogv, a sheep farm near Runavik on the island of Eysturoy. By this time Richard had my cold so he stayed on board while I went to visit the sheep. It was quite an operation. They were well set up for visitors and had two sheds where the farmer or members of his family talked to the visitors and showed off some of his sheep. He was the sixth generation to run the sheep farm.
He told us that there is a set yearly cycle to raising the sheep. He has 200 sheep and eleven rams. The whole family helps with farming operations. On January 7 they collect all the rams and each ram services 30 sheep. It’s possible that the rams forget to eat during this period. During the winter sheep take shelter in sheep houses and the farmer knows that if the sheep are lying on the floor there is a big storm coming.
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| The farmer explains |
Spring brings lambing season and that year the last lamb was born on June 2. July is shearing season. On this farm they don’t use dogs to manage the sheep. He didn’t tell us exactly how they do it or I didn’t write it down. He did say that they shear the sheep by hand and it takes 8 - 10 minutes to shear a sheep . The wool from these sheep is white, light grey, dark grey, light brown, and dark brown; many of the garments for sale in the islands use wool in these natural colours.
October is the time for slaughtering sheep. Sheep are not sent away to a slaughter house. Five men slaughter the sheep and four women take care of what comes out of the sheep. [I’m not exactly sure what I meant by that but that’s what I wrote in my notes.] All the meat stays in the islands and is either dried or fermented. Fresh sheep meat comes in from Scotland. When the talk was finished they ushered us into another shed where there was hot chocolate, very welcome that day as it was rainy and chilly. In the meantime, the next group arrived and occupied the first shed.
Hot chocolate on board, we went for a walk around the property and saw the sheep in their natural habitat. It was rainy and I used all my rain gear and my gloves. Where there are sheep there is sheep poop and it became impossible to avoid it. We counted on being able to clean our shoes on the wet grass before we boarded the bus to take us back to the ship.
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| Walking the farm |
Other highlights of the Faroes included more conversations with Janet whose first husband was a theatre director. In addition to being a social worker and a lawyer, she was also a teacher. She was from Texas. We met a couple on deck who were also very interesting. He was a retired RCMP officer who spent 20 years in forensics. He said he had seen everything, photographed everything, testified in court about everything and just got burned out.
On the scenery front we paid a visit to Gasadalur Falls.
If you look up the Faroe Islands you’ll probably find a photo of Gasadalur as it is one of the more famous ones. We also took a boat tour of more bird cliffs. I don’t remember the circumstances but we couldn’t get to one of the islands we were scheduled to land on. In true Adventure Canada fashion we were treated to a very interesting plan B. We visited the island of Soruagur. [A note on the spelling of Faroese words: there are a number of symbols required to spell the words properly and I can’t find them so, with apologies to the Faroese, I’ve left them out.] Soraugur is privately owned by an outfitter but we got permission to land our zodiacs and wander around the island. One of the attractions for me was a series of fulmar nests that I could watch at fairly close range. I had fun trying to figure out the relationships between the various birds. Were they parent and chick or were they two parents? At times it looked like one pair in particular was involved in some sort of domestic spat. There were puffins but I didn’t think I’d get any better pictures than what I had managed on Fair Isle, so I concentrated on the other birds.
Our last day before reaching Iceland was a sea day with various presentations available. We landed on the island of Heimaey when we arrived in Iceland. We visited there in 2019 on our circumnavigation of Iceland. That is the island that saw a volcanic eruption in 1973. There is a great museum which included some of the houses that were partially destroyed by the lava flow.
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| Volcanic material inside a house |
The townsfolk managed to save some of the houses by using huge pumps to pump sea water which they sprayed onto the encroaching lava. One house is buried in lava except for the front porch which remains intact. Rather than spend time in the museum on this visit, we chose to hike up the volcano. Vents near the top were steaming and the ground was noticeably warm around them. From our vantage point on the top of the volcano we saw a plane fly below us and land on the airstrip.
Since Heimaey was our last stop before disembarking, we took the opportunity to get sim cards for our phones. I found an Icewear sweater and indulged in a licorice ice cream cone. I was hoping to have my fill of licorice ice cream while in Iceland but that wasn’t to be. From Heimaey we sailed to Reykjavik where we left the ship and struck out in a rented car. That’s for the next and maybe final blog post on the Scotland to Iceland trip of 2023. Stay tuned.
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