Reykjavík Grapevine - 11.11.2016, Síða 56

25km north of Reykjavík lies the
secluded, undulating fjord of
Hvalfjörður, "Whale Fjord." This
40km coastal route was once a
part of Iceland’s circular Route
One, connecting Reykjavík to the
north and, eventually, the rest of
the country. But in 1998, after two
years of construction, the 5.7km
Hvalfjarðargöng tunnel opened,
making Hvalfjörður into a seldom
travelled route that faded from
everyday use.
Into the dark
We set out to explore Hvalfjörður
on a stormy autumn afternoon.
On the northward drive, the
clouds get heavier and heavier,
until they finally unleash a dra-
matic downpour. Ours is the
only car that turns right before
the tunnel’s mouth, leaving the
traffic behind and peeling off
onto a slick and shining two-
lane road that skirts the shelf of
land between the fjord and the
mountains.
We rattle across an old fash-
ioned single-lane bridge, sending
up clouds of spray, and pull over
in a windblown lay-by that looks
over the area. There are no other
cars in sight, and just a few scat-
tered industrial buildings across
the fjord. The water is dotted
with nooks, islands and peninsu-
las, and the vast mountains that
cradle the fjord are dusted with
snow, revealing a textural sur-
face, heavily scored as if clawed
by the elements.
The churning sky mutes the
bright autumn foliage, turning
quickly from a heavy, watery blue-
grey to inky black. Driving careful-
ly through sheets of rain, we decide
to aim for the welcoming lights of
Hotel Glymur for a hot meal and a
warm bed, and to resume the ad-
venture in the morning.
Guilty secret
By dawn, the rain has turned to
hail. The sunrise feels late, with
pink sunbeams strafing the sky
horizontally, picking out the bot-
toms of the clouds. I open the cab-
in doors wide and tip-toe across
the frozen deck, pulling the top off
the hot pot and slipping into the
steaming water to watch the sun
creep upwards. In the distance,
the lights of a small town twinkle,
and the mountains—visibly whit-
er than yesterday—curve grace-
fully down to the fjord. A sole lorry
appears in the distance, trundling
by noisily, and stoking my appetite
to get back on the road.
We pull up first at the locked
gates of an unmarked industrial
facility that is, famously, one of
Iceland’s sole remaining whaling
stations. It seems all but aban-
doned, with a couple of lights on,
and a single column of steam ris-
ing from a nondescript cluster of
buildings. I trudge around the pe-
rimeter, peering in through the
mesh fence. There are no signs
of life inside, but I catch a grim
glance of a ramped concrete dock
that vanishes into the waves—it’s
where whales are landed before
being processing into oil, blubber
and meat. Further up the hillside,
there’s a vantage point that looks
down upon two whaling vessels
marked “Hvalur.” The whole place
carries a sad, desolate feeling, like
the fjord’s guilty secret.
Not far down the road is anoth-
er hulking industrial complex, of
a different kind. A large white fac-
tory sits in front of a huge, muddy
cleft in the hillside, peppered with
piled pipes, fragments of metal,
and a sole rusting JCB. It’s site of
a former rhyolite quarry, where
the mineral was harvested to be
processed into concrete. Now, the
machines are still, and the sheer,
raw cliff of the quarried earth
bleeds with natural grey-green
chemicals. The monumental foot-
hills stand sombre over the scene,
criss-crossed with power lines,
creating a sense of forlorn beauty
and desolation.
Jutting precariously
T h e l a r g e s t p e n i n s u l a i n
Hvalfjörður is Þyrilsnes. After a
couple of minutes trundling out
towards the tall ridge at its end,
the potholed track is blocked—
first by a puddle so deep it’s more
like a ditch, and then by a fence.
There’s a stile that allows us to
continue on foot. At the peak of
the hill, the view unfolds beau-
tifully—bands of hail and rain
sweep over the water to the gar-
West
Going off the
beaten track
in Hvalfjörður
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 17 — 2016
56
How to get there
Route One north, turn right before the tunnel
Forgotten
The
Fjord
Words JOHN ROGERS Photos ART BICNICK