It's hard to pick a favorite island on the Faeroe, but if I had to choose I would be Kalsoy. I love that island! But as I said, it's hard to pick if not impossible. The Faeroe are magical and every island has it's special places and beauty as you can see in my previous posts.
View from Kalsoy island.
Eysturoy
Eysturoy is the second largest island in the Faeroe and with 880m height it has the highest mountain of all the Faeroe Islands. On a clear day the hike to the mountain top of Slættaratindur offers amazing views overlooking all of the islands. But also nearby mountains less high offer great views overlooking the fjords and some neighboring islands.
One of the most interesting places for me was the village of Gjogv. It, is beautiful located at the north western part of the island and has some form of a natural harbor formed by a steep canyon leading into the ocean. One of the highlights of Gjogv is the mountain leading up from out the village following the coastline. The rocky walls rises high up from the ocean and houses a big colony of puffins. Clown like looking adorable sea birds.
I really enjoyed photographing these funny little birds watching them drop of the high cliffs and seeing their clumsy way of landing back onto the steep rocks. They are great fishers and are only visiting the north in the summer months. If you love bird watching the Faeroe Islands are a great place to see numerous amounts of sea birds.
There are many more small villages on the island of Eysturoy worth visiting. I think the island is one of the best in the Faeroe for hiking as it offers endless hills, magical viewpoints and countless little streams trough fields filled with yellow flowers and funny "talking" sheep.
Kalsoy
As mentioned before, I love Kalsoy! And I'm not the only one. It recently appeared in the closing scene of the latest James Bond Movie, No Time to Die.
Kalsoy can only be reached by boat, the boat goes a few times a day and is very small. Since there can only be 12 cars transported at each time, you might find yourself waiting a few trips. Local people (cars) have priority over tourists. So it might be a gamble. Arrive early to take the first boat is my best advice. It is what I did, and I was lucky to get on board among the first visitors that day.
It was a rainy morning with low clouds covering the top of the mountains. Perfect for one of the things I planned to photograph on the island: The statue of the seal woman.
Kópakonan, the seal woman.
The story of the seal woman is a legend about the seals coming to shore every year. They pull off their sealskin and dance until the morning in one of the caves near the shore. When the sun rises they put back on their sealskin and disappear in the ocean. But not this time when a farmer saw the seal woman and hid her skin so she could not go back into the ocean. The farmer married the seal woman and they got two children. But the woman always kept looking at the ocean, until she found her skin back and disappeared.
When the village man went seal hunting that summer the seal woman showed up and warned the village man not to kill her family of seals. But they did anyway. Since that time the villagers are cursed by the seal woman and many weird accidents have taken place on the island of Kalsoy since.
I thought the dark atmosphere added a lot this image, it became one of my favorite photo's of this trip and probably stays one of my favorites for a long time.
The next part of my trip would be a hike up towards Kallur Lighthouse. A famous and popular place among landscape photographers.
Fortunately the weather became better and it had stopped raining. The clouds were still low and covering the mountaintops. The hike towards the lighthouse was pretty steep and since I had a weak knee due to a former injury I skipped to bring a bottle of water with me. That turned out to be a mistake...
The walk from the lighthouse towards the cliff the next photo is taken from is very narrow and can be slippery. Be careful there, if you slip and fall, you die. Like more places in the the Faeroe.
When I arrived I just waited for the clouds to clear. There is a breathtaking vista on the right side overlooking the northwestern coastline of the Faeroe. I used that image as a cover image for this post.
When I waited for the clouds to clear I became thirsty and regretted the bottle of water was still in my car. After two hours up there I returned back to the car to drink. I also found a small coffee kiosk and had some great home made pie. When I looked up back towards the mountain I saw the clouds had cleared.
This place is enormous and just epic. I recommend to stay all day up there if you have the chance of visiting once. But bring water and some food! The weather and light changes all the time providing some great opportunities for landscape photography. I hope to return one day.
Cheers,
Thijs