The Faroe Islands

The ferry from Denmark to the Faroes was 30hrs long. And it was long. Smaller than your average cross channel ferry and without a proper lounge to sit in, the 30hrs dragged by. I did have a proper bed in a shared cabin so had a very long nights sleep in the middle of the crossing. It arrived into the misty Faroes at 2230 so I drove straight to the campsite. Firstly because it was late and secondly because my van was uninsured there, so I’d be driving to the campsite and not moving it for the 3 days until the next ferry came.

 I’d been a bit worried when it came to checking in for the ferry as I’d booked Bertha on as a 1.9m x 5m vehicle. She’s very close to that so I thought it was worth the risk as the next size up was much more expensive.  I got waved through with no problems, as did the other T4. The T5’s (newer transporter vans) are slightly bigger and were loaded with the campervans. At the other end this had the advantage that I left with all the cars rather than being at the back of the queue with the campers. Feeling quite smug, I was second to arrive at the campsite and got one of the waterfront pitches all ready for the view in the morning. The morning arrived, I pulled back my curtain – couldn’t even see the sea for the mist. It didn’t lift all day, I walked into town and had a long wander, but really couldn’t see too much. After a few hours I went back to the campsite and saw the forecast was better for the next day so I thought I’d be productive and get some washing done.

I had a slight epic with the washing machine and it ended up getting halfway through another cycle before stopping and switching off. When I eventually got my washing out, the machine was still half full of water and my clothes were decidedly soggy. I put some in a drier (where the minimum of 300kr gave you 5hrs of drying time?!) and put non tumble drier clothes on the line outside. They weren’t going to dry but it was better than getting my van wet.

The next morning at 0530 I woke up to a quiet beeping. Not my phone, not my alarm, it beeped once then stopped. I thought it had stopped then it beeped again. It was my smoke detector low battery alert. I was going to have to do something about it so pulled back the curtain to get to it and the sky looked like it was on fire – the sun was about to rise so I watched it for a few minutes, took the battery out of my alarm and tried to go back to sleep. It wasn’t happening so I decided to get up and go out, given yesterday’s mist I was going to make the most of clear skies. So by 0620 I was out on my bike, riding up one of the huge hills behind Torshavn. The views from the top were stunning but it was starting to cloud over and was windy so I turned back, pleased to have at least got out for a short ride. Back at the campsite I went for a shower and when I came out everywhere had disappeared again, it stayed like that for the rest of my time in the Faroes.

I didn’t not enjoy it, there was a really good museum and Torshavn had enough to look round to keep me amused for a day but It was disappointing to not see more. That was until the ferry left and once we were out of the harbour we came out the other side of the mist and then the islands looked beautiful! Maybe somewhere to revisit at some point.