October 3 – 5 Suduroy - the most southern island

 

Not the best map in the world but it will hopefully give an overview

Our travels around the Faroes so far have taken us to six of the biggest islands and this morning we were to travel from Klaksvik to Torshavn (the capital) in order to catch a ferry to Suduroy, the most southern of the islands and only accessible via a 2-hour ferry ride (and by air presumably)  – no tunnel yet!  It was to be a day of amazing tunnels.  One of the most amazing was Eysturoyartunnilin which connects the islands of Eysturoy and Streymoy. This is a subsea network of 3 ‘tubes’ over 11Km long and at its deepest point is almost 200m beneath the seabed – not something to contemplate when driving through it I can assure you!  It also boasts the only subsea roundabout in the world (although we did negotiate a tunnel with a T-intersection in the Westfjords of Iceland in 2022!).  The roundabout is beautifully lit - quite an experience.  Visiting Suduroy means that we will have travelled from the northern-most point of the Faroes (on the island of Vidoy) to the most southern point on Suduroy island. The Faroes is a wondrous collection, a smattering, of craggy islands forged by volcanic and glacial activity.  Gives one pause for thought.  

The roundabout on the right

It was late afternoon before we arrived off the ferry and drove south to Vagur where we were booked into a B&B for a couple of nights, so we just hunkered down for the evening – travel can be quite draining!  In the morning, the woman who looks after the place gave us some good tips on what was worth seeing. We headed south first to the wee fishing harbour near Vagur, Vagseidi, the site of the first 'power plant' which enabled fishermen to haul their boats to safety out of high seas.  Then we headed to the most southern point of the island, Akraberg (lighthouse) perched over precipitous cliffs home to a multitude of seabirds.

Vagur overhung with clouds

The old fishing port of Vagseidi 

Wonderful cliffs in the distance which we couldn't get to because the road was closed

Wild rugged cliffs home to 1000s of seabirds

Navigation or communications towers dotted the southern cliffs

Remote and wonderful

Of course, to get to that part of the island meant driving through a tunnel but we took the advice of the ‘inn keeper’ and travelled back by the old mountain road. It was spectacular! Rather scary in places but it was absolutely worth it because we were treated to some breathtaking scenery. When not enveloped in ‘eiderdown’ clouds, it felt like we were driving on the top of the world. Along the way we stopped to look around and each time we stopped the sheep nearby came running from all directions to us to say hello and give us the once over, beautiful things. Wish that I had had a treat for them. 

Roiling skeins of clouds filled the valleys

The road felt very remote - delicious!

As we drove, delicate misty cloud swirled over and around us  

Stunning scenery

Lindsay, ever curious, reached the top of the hill only to find a sheer drop to the ocean way below! He came back trembling.

Our return trip over the mountain was so much more interesting than the tunnel!

The island has a more remote feel than the others – probably the distance, and that suited us fine. We could have lingered longer. Rather than describe what we saw I will leave you to browse the photos. You might quickly gather that the clouds fascinated me and some of the time those gorgeous ‘eider-down’ clouds huddling over parts of the island were gently weeping. We only had one complete day to explore this remote island so we didn’t dilly dally anywhere. We aimed to get to the northern most point but sadly we couldn’t make it because of inaccessible roads plus lots of heavy duty walking and visibility was pretty much blanked out. On the way to attempt to reach this point, we took a pretty rough road into Famjin on the west coast to see the oldest Faroese flag displayed in the church. When we got there the church was closed but it had been an interesting drive. Tradition says that Fámjin used to be called Vesturvik. The origin of its current name it is said to be as follows.  “One day two men from the village were out on the sea fishing from their boat. They saw a French sailship just lying out there waiting for wind. The two men invited two ladies into their boat to see a large halibut. When the ladies were on board the men quickly rowed towards their village with them. From the sail-ship they heard the Frenchmen shout "Femmes ... Femmes".  After that day Vesturvik was called Fámjin.

Some of these boat sheds are abandoned

Famjin

This northern region is basalt country

We are totally overwhelmed with the romance and beauty of the Faroes and would both like to rent a wee bothy and disappear to dream for a while. But tomorrow we board the ferry back to Bordoy and the capital city, Torshavn, for a couple of days before departing this magical place.

Suduroy is an island of churches in a country of churches