Early in the morning I had to take a short cab ride to the domestic terminal building, which although the airport was behind the hotel was about 5 mins in a car. The flight to Akureyri, which is pronounced AKOO-RAY-REE by the way, was only 40 minutes, of pure death defying hell. Right from the noisy take off, the guy sat next to me launches in to how in the bay here it is always windy, we took a sharp turn over the city as soon as we lifted off, which did nothing for the bowels, and although the flight attendant was adamant in serving red hot coffee to everyone the pilot finally told her to stop as the plane dropped more than a few feet for about the one millionth time... I don't jest, and yeah I had no tranqs on this plane ride, on the return, I have promised myself double dose.
Taking off and crossing the dryer centre of Iceland was one thing, but arrival into Akureyri was another. The only flat land for the landing strip in the fjord, is as I am sure you will guess is right IN the fjord. They reclaimed land from the water to build it in the middle of the icy water... but the bumpy winds and storm clouds flying in, were another omen.
Akureyri has had one of mildest winters on record and zillions came to see the northern lights with success. But I landed in a completely out of season snow storm, which despite having heated sidewalks from all that free heat in the ground, was still wet and slushy. The temp was only zero. Add wind, feels worse.
Town is pleasant enough..
This is the landing strip in the fjord. I and 2 others hired a driver in a jeep to go visit some farms, nothing out of the valley was doable because of the bad weather.
It looks so grey!
Okay first stop is an automated cow farm, here the cows come to the robot to get milked. The cows are tagged and so the computer knows who is there, when it was last milked, measures volume and won't milk a cow if it has been there within 6 hours.
It cleans, scrubs, does it all, the cows line up, voluntarily to get this done..
Okay out of sequence the restaurant below is back in town.
Back at the farm the Dutch made robot milkers work 24/7.
The cows do go out in summer but are kept in most of winter. This aisle is also patrolled by robots...
The cows seem happy.
So does the cat.
Oh the milking machines are still going...
This is the robot feeder, hay and left overs from the local brewery are mixed and put into this robot truck twice a day which goes up the aisle depositing the food for the cows and takes away anything left from the last delivery.
Wow the pics here are really out of whack I need to take small bathces of pics maybe, so this is a farmhouse, the Christmas house...
Icelandic folklore is full of trolls and the 'Yuletide Lads' - 13 naughty boys with white beards who slam doors, steal leftovers, they don't seem so nice. The mother of the lads hides in a cave, she is below..
Oh back to the farm,
And on the icy and stormy fjord side roads...
Here we are with horses and sheep at the aptly named Polar Hestar farm. It's a white out up here. Just along the road here is where Tom Cruise was filing the new movie Oblivion as well as the TV show Game of Thrones.
Cute icelandic ponies.
The two other tourists are from Maryland, he seems latino, she is a Russian immigrant of some years, they live a funny lifestyle because they are into drinking raw milk, as you know it is pasteurized for a reason, these guys like to drink warm from the cow, which they did here with great abandon, I am the odd one out because I say no. Looking at the milk you can see how globby looking the milk fat is, the homogenization of modern milk changes the look completeley and these guys say it destroys the taste.
The sheep were hungry! But they too shelter inside from the storm.
Ok this belongs to the Christmas house, surprise! Exit via the gift shop...
Back at the automated cow farm this was the last robot, it's the poopen-scoopen robot that cleans the floor. Don't crouch like I did to take photos as you get splashed when it goes by... :( I had to wash my hair after this jaunt.
The sheep looks evil.
On the way back to town we passed some old icelandic houses, from before the underground heat and such, they had sod rooves, that goats and sheep would keep mown down and the walls were sod too. Tiny windows for the heat loss, families would live at the back, the windowless side of the house.
Buried in snow...
This is the sod roof of one sheep barn, you can see roots and such growing down from the roof.
And this is the car we went up the hills with.
Here's the sod houses once more with local church.
And inside the sheep shed once more. This farm was interesting we had coffee and cake with the owners, he was icelandic, she was from Switzerland, very interesting chats around the table and of course in the car too. It's a shame the weather was so harsh, because it's lovely countryside.
But being inside today is not a bad deal - even in a sod house. I went back into town to eat, at a cafe in the city centre and walked up the ice free hot sidewalks while calling Shelly on the way back, stopped at a supermarket for some chocolate and voila, the night is done. Tonight was supposed to be the northern lights hunt at 10pm, as it starts getting darkish then, but because of the snow, it was cancelled. Tomorrow we get another shot at it - and looking at the weather forecast I have resigned myself that it is probably not going to happen. Fast lenses, tripod all the gear flown here... we'll see.
Today was the day that the guide told me about the German friends who compared the smell of fermented shark to horrible things... so that's the 24 hour perspective since yesterday.
Just bad luck landing here in such bad weather, by all accounts it had been spectacular all winter. The locals are laughing because Icelandic law is that today is the day that all cars have to have their snow tires removed...
One more fun fact: The Prime Minister of Iceland is listed in the Reykjavik phone book. Yes, it's their home number.
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