This morning we set out from the hotel in search of the end of the road going north. It was gravel road all the way some parts of which required slow going. So after about two hours (including a couple photo stops) and 65 kilometers we came to the town of Dupavik. It boasts a hotel, several residences and a defunct herring factory. We stopped into the hotel, a small one, and found it funky, warm and very cordial. The boss came out and said have all the coffee and tea you want. He was also the tour guide for the herring factory. We decided to take the tour at 2pm rather than continue on to the end of the road. It was a good decision.
The herring factory was started in 1935. It is a huge concrete structure. The biggest in Iceland at the time. The factory produced herring oil and meal on a grand scale. They also had a salted herring packing operation. The guides in-laws bought the factory and hotel in 1985 with the thought of developing it into something. The hotel is very cool. They are working on the factory. A lot of the machinery is still in place in a very rusted and unusable condition, of course. It was interesting to see how the operation worked from unloading the fishing boats to packing 100 kilo bags of fish meal. One interesting thing is their power plant included two huge German-built diesel engines which were of the same type used to power their U-Boats during WWII. So we spent a couple hours walking around the factory and listening to the story.
The long drive back to Drangsness went well. When we arrived back at the hotel we discovered that the staff had not refreshed our room. That was in poor form for sure. They quickly brought fresh towels and we settled in for the night. As usual Ginny wrote up the day in her scrapbook and I worked on the photos.
Today's photo is of the sheep posse guarding the approaches to Dupavik herring factory.
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