October 2 Múla and Bordoy

 

It is just so beautiful here so full of wonder and mystery and magic – I have simply run out of superlatives. Today we had a choice of visiting another island, Kalsoy, and going on a long guided walk or exploring more of the island of Bordoy. We chose the latter. There are 8 towns and villages on Bordoy some of which we had already seen but we decided to start with the northernmost one and then work our way south.  What a place to start! The ‘barely-there’ hamlet Mula or Muli. It is among the first settlements in the Faroe Islands (it’s mentioned in the historical Hunda-bravio ‘The Dog Letter’ that dates back to 1350). Over the centuries the people have lived on fishing and farming and also eggs from the northern fulmar nests perched on the cliffs. Today there are only 4 houses mainly vacation cottages although one looked fairly lived in to me - and there’s a pretty new ‘sauna’ there perched looking out to sea. I think I could live there for a while.  The area is rich in bird life – Eurasian oystercatchers, golden plovers, arctic terns and skuas, whimbrels and more. 

The road to the village was a pretty rough broken up single lane track but that’s pretty good given that it was one of the last villages in the Faroes to become accessible by road (1988). Before this, the village was only reachable on foot from the nearest village 14 km away, by crossing the cape of Múla from Skalatoftir which would have been a huge challenge, or by boat. I can tell you the road is quite a challenge! Few people come here apart from travellers like us (we passed 6 motorbikes coming in as we left) and shepherds who tend to the sheep. The remains of a sheepfold dating back to mid 1600s are still visible they say but we didn’t brave the boggy ground to investigate. The ground everywhere we’ve passed looks like deep peat and is very wet. I saw many intriguing plants and can only imagine what the area would look like in spring-summer - glorious no doubt.

A wild angelica of sorts

Interesting windbreak

Banks of wild roses still flowering

History tells that this village is where the famous sorcerer Guttorm í Múla once lived (Guttormur Rasmusson 1657-1737). He was a farmer but legend has it that he was a skilled sorcerer. The whole of the Faroes abounds with magicians, sorcerers, Huldufolk, the dark people and witches. 

A puzzle!

There were warning signs NOT to drink the water

Across the fjord is were we had lunch the previous day - Vidareidi

This would have been an extremely rough ride

The days tend to merge a little, but the scenery continues to take our breath away. And then there’s the wonderful myths and legends which take you back to a time huddled around a fire in the darkness of winter with gales screaming in from the Arctic. But romance aside – I’m not sure why – we turned our wheels south and explored as many of the villages as we could get to. There is a reasonable amount of development happening in a number of the villages, all tourist-related I believe. 

We eventually made it back to Klaksvik with time to visit the rather splendid Christianskirkjan; this very modern church was consecrated in 1963. The interior is wonderful and full of light and externally its stark basalt walls blend beautifully with the surrounding mountains which seem to cradle it.