As someone who prefers longer and more off the beaten track trips, it took a while for my husband, with more limited holiday, to persuade me to join this new Rat Race Test Pilot. The distances didn’t look very challenging but it would give me an opportunity to explore a small, but culturally distinct, place which wasn’t even on my bucket list.
Most people have heard of the Faroe Islands but don’t know much about them. So here are some basic facts: they lie between Iceland and the Shetland Islands, they are owned by Denmark, the population is 54,000 across 18 islands and they have Viking heritage. Almost all the land is privately owned and there is no right to roam. This means that, unless there is a fee box on your route, you must track down the landowner to pay a fee for crossing their land.
Our journey via Copenhagen was extremely smooth, thanks to excellent service from SAS. From the UK, you can also get a direct flight from Edinburgh a couple of times a week.
After an early damp start at home, we were greeted by blue skies and sunshine, a rarity in a country that has 300 days of rain a year. The tiny airport delivered our bags quickly and it was a short walk to the Hotel Vagar. We met the rest of our small group over an Indian thali meal at the nearby Cafe Zorba.
The next day brought a continuation of the good weather and the start of our challenge, from the village of Gasadalur. This village is home to the stunning Mulafossur waterfall and only became accessible by road when a tunnel was built in 2004. Like most villages in the Faroes, it has a tiny and decreasing population (11 in 2020).
Our hike/ run took us 15km over the 600m ‘postman’s pass’, and back past the airport to Sorvagsvatn lake, which is inhabited by a mythical horse called The Nix. We kayaked the length of the lake to see the picture perfect Bosdalafossur waterfall that drops over a cliff from the lake into the sea. We paddled back along the other side of the lake (paying a second landowner for the pleasure) and ran a further 5km run to the Giljanes hostel.
After a hot shower, pizza and glass of red wine, a couple of us headed back to Gasadalur in the hope of sighting puffins. Despite it being early in the season, I was super excited to spot a handful of newly arrived puffins preparing their burrows for nesting.
We moved onto cycles for our second day. We rented hybrid bikes locally, and they were excellent quality. 66km doesn’t seem very far, but with over 1,100m of ascent and some very high gusts of wind, it was suitably challenging. I was blown off the road at one point, gracefully landing on soft grass and just missing a horrified sheep! Gorgeously shaggy, multi coloured sheep are part of the landscape and, especially during lambing season, significantly outnumber humans.
Another first was cycling through the 6km tunnel that slopes under the sea between Vagar and Stremoy island. It was well lit and the traffic mostly gave us a wide berth, but the sound effects were eery. After reaching our destination, the Gjaagardur Guesthouse in Gjogv, on Eysturoy island, we headed back out to hike up Slaettaratindur, the highest peak of the Faroes. The clouds were closing in on us, and the wind was incredibly strong at the top, but we made it just in time to get a decent view.
The weather changed overnight and we spent the next drizzly morning driving through Bordoy and Vidoy islands to the most northerly point of the Faroes, Cape Enniberg. This is home to the world’s tallest vertical sea cliff, at 754m. Unfortunately, the cloud was so low we didn’t see a thing. We stopped for burgers in Klaksvik, the second largest town of the Faroes, and with the cessation of rain and lifting of clouds, we were able to do a lovely 8km hike over the pass from Saskun village to Tjornuvik. In Saskun we experienced some very anti tourism sentiment, which is referenced in the Bradt guidebook. Despite being in the process of extending the airport, I sense that there are strongly conflicting views on whether tourism is a good thing. At the same time, the continuation of the annual Grind – an age-old custom of killing of hundreds of pilot whales and other dolphins, deters many people from visiting the islands.
Our hike was followed by an early dinner, after which we headed to Eidi. We changed into dry suits and paddled around the coast, dipping in and out of huge caves carved into the volcanic rock where we could hear the booming of the waves as they hit the rock ahead of us. We watched the sun slowly setting behind the Giant and the Witch, who, according to legend, turned into sea stacks when they were caught trying to move the island towards Iceland. Puffins floated around us, ferociously flapping their wings and bumping along the water in take offs no airline would be proud of. It was an incredibly peaceful way of spending the twilight hours and we pulled out of the water just before midnight.
Normal Faroese weather had settled in the following morning. The team parted and we headed to the capital, Torshavn. We managed a short walk around the town with horizontal rain stinging our faces, and enjoyed a warming Thai meal before settling in our cosy room at Hotel Djurhuus. Finally the ubiquitous underfloor heating was a necessity! We all thoroughly enjoyed the experience and, with some tweaking, the event will shortly go live on the Rat Race site. Another successful Test Pilot and I’m already looking forward to the next one.
