The Faroes: Beautiful views and cheap beer

The weather wasn't so good to start the day, so I'm going to commence the story at the end of the day when we ended up at a remarkable place called Muli on the island of Bordoy. Muli has been a ghost town since 1992, although given that a passerby has scratched out some of the text on the board which relates to it being a ghost town, it may be a contentious claim. It seems to be beyond dispute that Muli was originally settled in the 1350s and by the 1800s there were about 25 people living in the village. It was the last place in the Faroes to be connected to the power grid, which happened in 1970. However Muli wasn't accessible by road until 1988, which seems ironic given that four years later it became a ghost town! The last two or three kms are unsealed, but it's in good enough condition for any car to access the township. There's some nasty drop offs on the narrow road and in typical Faroese style, the safety fences have been erected in random places. Follow the usual drill and keep your speed down and you shouldn't come to any harm. There's probably a dozen houses in the village and although it's a 'ghost town' all of the dwellings are in good condition and most of them appear to be inhabited on a casual basis.
There's a nice walk out to a point where you can see Vidareidi. The landscape around Muli is stunning. Most Faroese towns are trapped in valleys right down on the water's edge. The civic fathers of Muli went for a different locale. It's in quite open country with sweeping view in pretty much every direction and lots of open land around the settlement. There's still lots of sheep here and we were lucky enough to encounter a Faroese shepherd on the land today. His only gesture to the past was that he carried a staff. His clobber looked like it had been purchased at one of those upmarket outdoor stores, no Faroese jumper for this guy and to complete the picture he was on his mobile phone when we passed him, so not quite as romantic as you might envisage. The picture below captures him hard at work. Given his smooth relationship with technology I figured he wouldn't be too upset about appearing on this blog.

You could probably spend a couple of hours in Muli without too much trouble. There's some beautiful old dwellings here and the views are truly sensational even on a murky day like today. Muli was a bit of an accidental excursion after a visit to Árnafjørður. These places look pretty close to Klaksvik, where we are staying, and as the crow flies they are close. However there's a couple of one way tunnels on the journey so don't be surprised if a trip that Google says will take 20 minutes occupies considerably more of your time. You can actually hike here from Klaksvik and you might just find it quicker to walk if the tunnels are really slow. There's two new dual lane tunnels being built which, for better or for worse, will forever change access to these places. The tunnel that gives access to Árnafjørður was built in 1967 and until that time there was no road access to the town,
Árnafjørður is one of those places that almost anywhere else in the world you would describe as a beautiful seaside village. It does have some nice features and to be fair, it's somewhat scarred by the roadworks going on in the background, but it's not up there with the best the Faroes has to offer. There's some great coastal views and a few beautiful waterfalls at the back of Árnafjørður. We were there after solid rain and serious snow melt, so the water was pumping. Árnafjørður also has the usual suspects in the form of a lovely church dating back to 1937 and a school that opened in 1904. Before the church was opened, if you were unlucky enough to die in Árnafjørður your remains were either walked over the mountains to Klaksvik or transported by sea to Bordoyavik. If the mourners couldn't manage the walk to Klaksvik or you couldn't stump up the funds for the boat trip, then your mortal remains ended up in the water at a place called the Rock of the Dead, just below the Mine House.
There's a nice rowing club boathouse down near the wharf area. Apparently the town was renowned for producing some great rowers over the years. If you go inside the clubhouse, it's unlocked and open to the public, you'll find some beautiful wooden row boats. However apparently the cub struggles for numbers these days and the boats are lent to other clubs. Also worth noting, in typical Faroese tradition there's a really clean public toilet in the building.

There's also interesting stories surrounding Árnafjørður and WWII. Apparently some stray mines drifted into the bay and blew up, so in their wisdom the villagers built some shelters for protection which are at the back of the town on the path down from the mountains. One of the mines managed to drift from the beach into the river and exploded right near the church' leaving a gaping hole in one part of the building.

As I mentioned earlier in this blog, the day got off to a wet start in Klaksvik so we spent the morning wandering around town. One of the more interesting aspects of the excursion was a visit to Rúsdrekkasøla Landsins. It's a government owned bottle shop which has a monopoly on the sale of takeaway alcohol on the Faroe Islands. This type of arrangement is not unusual in the Nordic countries. The shops have very restricted opening hours and I would argue the aesthetics of the shop interior and logo are also fairly restricted. In fact the logo looks like something from a bad hairdressing salon in the 1970s. See pic below for supporting evidence of my claim.

The shop was surprisingly well stocked and the other surprise was the price of the alcohol. The Faroes are not a cheap place to visit; you pretty much add 25-30% onto the price of everything at home in order to calculate what you pay for food and accommodation. With a government monopoly on outlets and limited trading locations, I figured this was some kind of ploy to keep the Faroese sober and straight in an old school Lutheran way. However it seems that the government puts no tax onto booze here and simply takes all the profits from the sale of takeaway alcohol. It's a great way to raise money and to keep the locals happy with cheap booze, even if the locations are, limited and the trading hours scarce. However given the cheap prices I suspect it does absolutely nothing to deter those who like a tipple a little too much to keep away from the demon drink. When you see premium Belgian trappist beers selling for about AU$6 you know you've found a bargain. Some of this stuff is like rocket fuel, coming in at over 10% alcohol content. For the equivalent of AU$20 you'll be ready to kick on late into the night.
For the real connoisseurs they also sell a good range of craft beers. I bought a can of Peter, Pale and Mary Gluten Free Pale Ale. That decision was purely based on the fact that I loved the design on the can see pic below. This drop is brewed by Mikkeller in Copenhagen a brewery that was founded by a school teacher in 2008. It went down nicely with the fish and chips we had for dinner. My first taste of a Mikkeller brew was at Copehagen Airport a week or so ago. They have a great bar in the departure area, that comes complete with a wide variety of beer, grunge music and bar staff with oodles of attitude. You can't go wrong!