Feeling blessed as I leave, I nearly make a bad choice I was considering passing up on a visit to Skogar museum that would have been an awful mistake!
Nothing as yet has given me a feel for the past in any depth this museum really achieves that!
I don't think Iceland has been 'modern' for very long a hundred years or so is my guess and prior to that subsistence living relying on boats to brave the often insane seas here
farming of sheep for meat and wool spinning yarn to make the famous jumpers
a good selection of spindle whorls here too.
Cattle to provide leather and horn, drinking vessels and cutlery made from horn due to the lack of wood here
a spoon former here!... Boil up a strip of horn cut to shape and place in the former close it up and leave the spoon to cool... Who needs plastic!
Naturally horns for communication over the rugged landscape, calling people in for meals, church... Probably no end of reasons and different calls
but horns obviously carried status.... A horn call was a command not a request. Calling back to the farmstead would bring you to these basic looking homes
comprising workshops, kitchens and sleeping quarters where multiple people slept together for warmth
you can see where the side has been cut out to make entry exit easier but once in an ornate bed board is placed to stop anyone being pushed out!........
living areas were decidedly more posh,
entertainment of visitors, business, music, schooling would be carried out here, all under those rock slate and turf ceilings..... You wouldn't think so from that image!
People's attire, Sunday best/weddings etc was really fancy!
with ornate buckles and brooches that still held onto designs familiar to the ancient Norse
transport over land was on foot or horse back, the women folk riding side saddle with more or less ornate sales depending on your wealth
and men's more practical saddles
imply that the women looked after the homes whilst men attended to the more distant business of daily life.
Like I say that museum really gave me an impression of how things may have been ....I can always be wrong in my interpretations!
On my way and I get an impression of the distances here.... How often did people travel to meet?
a lighter and very much more modern stop I go off the main road to see a cave...... Modern?...... Well modern in its name!
it's named the Yoda cave..... Yes after Yoda from start wars!..... Very silly!
But a good break from the road!
From the cave to the sea is just black sand all ground up by ancient glacier!
But this is the start of a lesson in how terrain changes here
To dormant volcano.... You can caldera in so many peaks as you drive along!
through moorland
with occasional patches of odd rocky terrain.... Little piles of rocks that no doubt tourism has had more prominent
long stretches of round looking rocks covering miles of land that on closer inspection are rocks covered in grey moss
plateau with waterfalls, the entire lengths of which have smoothed and eroded by eons of water flow!
the last section of road before I stop for the day is a wide valley floor....I call it valley but it's miles across, it really leaves you feeling tiny.... Never a bad experience! It's quite overwhelming
looking back and seeing the huge plateau you'd driven past reduced to slim grey line on the horizon!
Equally turning forward and seeing the next plateau with the huge Vatnajokull glacier grinding it's way to the level of the land your on
my stop for the night is at the base of the hill to the left of the left hand glacier....
As always stop eating sleep become priority.... Leaving this blog to be written later!
