Category: Islands of the North Atlantic

The sixth was a day that involved a lot of driving: east from near the north-middle of the island, to the eastern fjords. Along the way we saw a lot of open country, with mostly low scrub or tundra grasses, or lunar grey rock fields. We also saw some beautiful waterfalls. Some had names, but…

Oops, I’m getting a bit behind here. This post is memories of the 5th. We started off with a walk around the re-forrested peninsula into Myvatn (having since discovered that the name literally means “midge lake” in Icelandic). It was a bit cooler than the previous day, and there was a bit of breeze, so…

Oh, and a bit of aurora action, last night… After some email communication with the car hire folk, it transpired that the petrol station back in Húsavík would be able to sell us a bag of the “AdBlue” addative needed to keep the car going, so we went there first, and bought some. Shortly after,…

Today was checkout day from the guesthouse that we’ve been in for three nights. Easy, as we’re getting better at this, and packing for the car can be a bit lax. First stop was Húsavík, the town a little south of us, to shop for provisions. There was some thought of exploring, but there was…

Today we headed east along the 85 again, but where yesterday we stopped at the Asbyrgi canyon, today we continued around to the North, heading for Raudinupur Cape, one of Icelands most northerly points. We stopped to stretch our legs along the way at a nameless parking spot along the coast that turned out to…

The coffe shop that I had high hopes for in Siglufjordur had decent coffee but not great English, and all of the pastries seemed to be variations on iced doughnut. Well customed by folk who looked like fishermen. It occurred to me that the further we get from Reykjavik the more likely it probably is…

The Hraunfossar and Barnafoss are waterfalls that share a carpark, but are quite different in character. The Barnafoss are as turbulent and violent a waterfall as I’ve seen: a roiling rapids coursing through craggy rock openings. A little further down stream, the same water source, many tiny springs that flow from underneath the lava field,…

Today we drove along the northern coast of the Snæfellsnes peninsula in an easterly direction until we reached the town of Stykkishólmur, which sits at the mouth of a large fjord. It was a few degrees colder this morning, than yesterday, and raining constantly as we drove. The road took us past Kirkjufellsfoss. The car…

Our second day in Iceland was to be an easy one: drive anti-clockwise around the Snæfellsnes peninsula from Olafsvik, stopping at Djúpalónssandur beach and then lunch somewhere at Arnarstapi, a small fishing village to the south, and then back to the apartment via the same mountain pass we had used the day before, hoping for…