Faroe Islands

Excitement was shown all over our faces as we were in line waiting to board the ferry to the Faroe Islands. For those of you who do not know, the Faroe Islands are an archipelago situated between south east of Iceland, north of Scotland and west of Norway and are owned by the Danish kingdom, with just under 50,000 inhabitants. They have their own language but most can speak Danish and English.

The dot is where we are

There’s 2 ways of getting to the Faroe Islands – Plane and ferry, and I’m pretty sure you can only get there from Denmark… I can’t remember though. The ferry does round trips starting from Denmark, making its way to the Faroe Islands, then on its way to Iceland, then all the way back to Denmark. Because we were on bikes we couldn’t access the ferry via the pedestrian gangway, so we had to board at the back of the ferry with all the cars. There were already lots of trucks, busses, big 4WD’s and cars when we arrived, waiting to drive on to the ferry. There’s a lot because part of them are going to the Faroe’s and part are going to Iceland. We were the only people not in a vehicle, and when we showed our boarding pass, they said we could go to the front of the line. It was such a good feeling jumping this long cue. The looks we received by the people waiting looked like curiosity and why? Haha it was funny, because there’s people going back home from Denmark, then there’s the adventurous tourists in cars and then there’s little ole Kel and Eb rolling up on our bikes.

Almost every single person we’ve told that we are going to the Faroe Islands have said to us – “why!? You know it’s cold there? It’s always raining and going into winter” and “You guys are crazy”. I couldn’t help but just smile back to them and say “why not?” I mean, we’ve had a very long summer. We had an Australian summer, SE Asia summer, European summer and to tell you the truth, we were sick of it! So why not? We’re on an adventure, not a holiday.

We boarded the ferry along with the cars and trucks, tied and locked our bikes to the ferry and went looking for our room. You guessed it, we chose the bunks which was obviously the cheapest option and was actually below the car deck. It kind of felt like Titanic for me, as I’ve never been on a boat this big before. So if you can remember Jack’s room in the lower deck of the Titanic you might be able to picture our room. Well, I felt our room was way worse than his. Nine beds in this small space that didn’t even have room for anyone’s bags. It felt very claustrophobic. The ferry had a gym, pool, sauna, buffet, a couple bars, teenager room, kid’s room, a little tourist shop, a couple of bars and a little soccer pitch. We were very keen to utilise most of these but sea sickness got the better of me. Who wants to go to the gym and bench press while the freakin’ boat is swaying side to side. I forgot to mention that we were on this boat for two and a half days. Eb managed while I just needed to lay down and I’d be sweet. Most of our time was spent on the deck or in bed. It was amazing when we passed the most northern tip of the Shetland Islands and crossing into the North Atlantic Ocean. It just felt crazy and surreal that we were in the middle of the ocean. One big bummer about the ferry is that you have to pay to use the Wi-Fi and obviously the prices were ridiculous so we didn’t use any internet. This boat ride will forever be remembered as the time I missed the 2015 NRL grand final, which I later found out was to be dubbed one of the greatest grand finals in history! I missed a very important game in the rugby world cup between Wallabies vs Wales and I missed UFC too. I was losing my mind.

Bye Denmark

HELL

I’m flying Jack

The North Atlantic

The Northernmost point of the Shetland Islands

We arrived in Torshavn, the capital of the Faroe Islands at 5:00am. We woke up at 4:00am to see if we could see any of the mountains as we were arriving but it was pitch black still. As the ferry docked, we went down to our bikes and waited for the doors to open. As we rolled off we didn’t even go through customs, we just went straight out and that’s where we were greeted by our host, Jens, who we’d organised a home stay with. He came with his car and trailer so we could load our bikes, then he drove us 30 minutes back to his village, Vestmanna. We were so anxious as we knew we were surrounded by massive mountains but we couldn’t see any because it was pitch black!

As we got back to Jens’ home, which we would now call home, we met Jens’ wife, Rigmor. Jens’ is an entrepreneur. He has his hands full with a cleaning business, tanning salon, and he’s also a school teacher, Rigmor is the school principal of the school in Vestmanna. They have 3 boys; 18yr old Peter, 14yr old Sonny, and 4yr old Otto.

As they went about their usual business for the day, Eb and I tried to get some rest but were so excited by the view that was appearing in front of us as the sun was rising. They live 200 meters from the water and are surrounded by these massive green mountains! We just kept looking out the window in awe of what we were seeing. If only you could understand our excitement. If you’ve watched the movie – The Beach, and you can remember Leo Dicaprio’s excitement on his face when he finally got to “the beach”, I guess that’s what our faces were like.

We’ve been here a couple of days now and have done a little bit of exploring and man… I’ll just let the photo’s do the talking. Well, they don’t even do it justice, but you can imagine.

Kel