Main meeting excursion to the northern Eysturoy

The preliminary plans include:

• Visit at the windmill park and battery system at Húsahaga.

• Stop at the pass Norðadalsskarð with the view to the island Koltur and the iconic road down to the village of Norðadalur. This is known as a quite windy place. The road station at this location measured 76.5 m/s, before it disappeared, during the so-called Christmas storm on the 22’th of December 1988. Since then, the guardrail along the main road has been torn up a few times.

   

• Passing the early warning radar station at Sornfelli, which was established during the Cold War period in the early 1960s, please see the pre-meeting excursion. If weather permitted, we will see the radara domes on the top of Sornfelli. Along the road we will pass the facilities, which served as baracks for the staff operating the radars when they were in service, but today function as jail. When not foggy, the name of the place is Mjørkadalur, the foggy walley, this is considered as one of the very few jails with a view.

• The Whaling Station at Við Áir, which was established in 1905 and closed its commercial operation in 1958. It is the only surviving of the seven commercial whaling stations established in the Faroe Islands around the turn of the 20th century. Of the about 200 whaling stations established by Norwegian whalers around the world, this is the only one conserved in the northern hemisphere. It played a role in the industrialization of the Faroe Islands and is now under restoration as an open museum.

• Crossing the bridge at Við Streymin, which connects Eysturoy and Streymoy. South of the bridge there is very small tidal variationm while north og brigde the different between the most extreme low and high waters i more than 2 m. If the tiing is correcting, the resulting very strong tidal current may be up.

• Driving along the Strait of Sundalagi, special features in Faroese geology, some of the highest waterfalls, a mix of industry facilities and cozy villages, aquaculture sea plants, and old wooden churches will be along the route.

• The Loran C station at Eiði or a nearby viewpoint. This is also an abandoned installation from the Cold War period, which has been of vital importance for all navigation in this part of the Atlantic and Nordic Seas for almost half a century, and has had a significant local impact on the neighboring villages

• Weather observations were part of the operations in this period, and today, one of the weather stations operated by FMO is nearby. Depending on the visibility, remains of the building hosting one of the first radars installed during World War II may be seen from here, which today provides space for communication equipment and one of the FMO web-cameras.

   

• Next, we plan to continue over the Eiðisskarð, which is the highest pass possible to cross on a public road at the foot of the highest mountains on the islands, while we are viewing over one of the reservoirs to one of the main hydro power plants, and an area considered for installation of a windmill park. As a preparation to this project there are two high masts for wind measurements, which are applied in the validation for the Windatlas project at FMO, and the weather models in general.

   

• Continue to the village Gjógv, which is named after the defining sea filled  gorge, which served a a natural harbor. This gorge was flooded by a tsunami created by a landslide into the sea on the islands on the other side of the fjord on the June 9th in 1953. This village has suffered large losses to the sea, and these are remembered by the sea memorial depicting a mother and her two young children standing on the rocks, bracing against the wind.

• Here we will visit the Gueathouse Gjaaragarður for refreshments.

• Driving back from Gjógv, we will turn to the old village Funningur, where one of the first viking settlers arrived with his house hold more than a millennium ago, we will overview both aquaculture and seaweed plants in the fjord, and across the strait get a distance glimpse to Klakkur, the northern end of the island Kalsoy, which has become a tourist spot due to the iconic small lighthouse, and as the place where James Bond perished for good in the movie No Time to Die. From there, we will continue through the Funningsfjørð and Skálafjørð.

   

• The final part of the trip will be through the sub-sea tunnel between Eysturoy and Torshavn, with the now world-famous roundabout with the sculpture by the local multi-artist, Tróndur Patursson.

Please note that this is still just a preliminary working plan, and we hope to be more specific when we are closer to the meeting.  And as everything here in the Faroes, it is weather-permitted. We are really looking forward to meeting you here.