ICELAND part 8

ICELAND RING ROAD, part 8 (July 14-25, 2018)


Slight delay in getting this report out, life gets in the way!


In part 7 we had a tad bit of fog and rain while traversing from the East Fjords to the fishing town of Akureyri in the north. I still call it a "town", but I believe it's the 2nd largest city in Iceland with a population of about 20k. After stopping for BEER! we arrived at our guesthouse in the countryside...in the rain! After unloading our Subaru we drove back to town for a nice dinner out...rain let up!








The guesthouse was pretty large and comfortable, felt like an old retirement home actually with people walking the halls in white robes heading to the shared bathrooms, ha! We slept well, but discovered more thick fog when we woke. Honestly I have no idea what Akureyri really looks like because the weather conditions were that bad. No biggie, we will return! A nice young Irishman at the front desk suggested that instead of driving straight out to the Ring Road we could venture out around the point of Eyjafjordour Fjord to the village of Siglufjordur, ok... so we did. This detour probably added an additional 150km, but wandering is what we were there for!











Took over an hour to get to Siglufjordur, home of the Herring Museum! The small towns/villages of Iceland are very quaint, clean and peaceful, all are quite beautiful actually. We walked around the village that sits at the end of the peninsula and found a great coffee shop/bakery. The grocery store was also open so we re-provisioned a little, including some Icelandic Cod for dinner later. Our daughter researched our route and found another small town that has a modern geothermal swimming pool, ok lets go for a soak!








After another hour drive we found the warm pool with an ocean view, ahhhh. Drangey Island with its steep cliffs can be seen in the photo, another colony of Puffin hang out there! They offer a 3 hour sailing/hiking tour to the island....not enough time. After soaking in the pool and hot tub for a while it was unfortunately time to think about our remaining 3 hour drive to our farm stay in Borgarnes. Not sure if lounging in a geothermal pool was the right thing to do before a 250km drive...but we did it!

We saw some interesting sights from Akureryi to Borgarnes, even went through a couple cool tunnels. Most of our last 2 hours was kinda just open road driving, but as we got closer to our farm stay we saw a line of Icelandic horses racing down the side of the road...In my head I heard Michael Martin Murphy's piano intro... "She came down from yellow mountain, on a dark flat land she rides, on a pony she named Wildfire"... sing it with me! "She ran calling...WILDFIRE!"








We crossed a one lane bridge then drove through even more beautiful farm land outside of Borgarnes. We had no issues finding our farmhouse at the end of a long dirt road. The huge house sits high on a hillside overlooking the several thousand acre farm, complete with horses and the friendliest sheep dog who greeted us when we parked! The young caretakers of the University owned sheep farm and farmhouse were very nice. We had the entire updated upstairs to ourselves, 4 bedrooms, large vaulted family room with amazing windows, huge kitchen and beautiful bath, perfect. It was still light out, but we knew it was time for dinner, my own twist on a "Fish Pan" meal we had in the East Fjords.










We slept like babies here. I made coffee and saw that the skies had a little blue in them this morning, maybe we'll luck out with the weather! While the ladies slept in I took my coffee outside and was greeted again by the pup, this time with a stick in his mouth! I spent an hour walking the fields and playing fetch, he likes that stick! Donna joined in the fun for a while then it was time for breakfast and a quick packing of the bags.










We had originally planned to go straight to Reykjavik which was just an hour or so away, but we decided that we would regret not wandering west just a little, so back on the road we went in the direction of the Snaefellsnes Peninsula and the Snaefellsjokull National Park. What a beautiful coastal drive. There is so much to see here, but we had to pick and choose since we wanted to be in Reykjavik for dinner. So many amazing churches on this island, we had to stop at a few, my favorite was Budir Church from the late 1800's (first pic below).










We wanted to try to find some seals, so on to Ytri-Tunga Beach. Once out of the car we were greeted with a slight breeze and the smell of the ocean, nice. A sign in the dirt parking lot showed the difference between common and grey seals...so down the shoreline we walked in search of them!




















What a great experience getting to see the seals, Excellent! Next on the list was to stretch our legs a bit at Londranger Basalt Cliffs...rumor has it that some elves live there!!










The cliffs and the lava field flow into the Atlantic was quite a nice stop, but we must keep moving!! With the Snaefellsjokull Volcano topped with a glacier always present to our right we traveled around the peninsula. It was getting late in the afternoon and we still had 2-1/2 hours drive to Reykjavik so we must hustle, not to mention I was getting a tad hangry....but hey look, another waterfall!! Of course we said "let's make it a quick stop!"...and of course my wife and daughter decided to ford across a glacial river and hike through tall grass to the top of the mighty waterfall in the distance!!! Great memories, glad we made the "quick stop".









To be continued....

Another great collection of photos and stories!
Question on the photos - are you shooting them in B/W or changing them to B/W using photo software?

Thanks Tom. My camera has a monochrome setting, but I haven't tried using it yet. I simply back down the color in editing. I'm also still shooting in jpeg, I need to make the jump to RAW and a real processing software...one of these days.

Your last picture is outstanding! Basalt, waterfall and hikers - Fantastic!!!

Thank you Maria and/or Steve! It's a Geologist and hikers heaven over there!

Just want to say that we have been enjoying your photos immensely. We hope to visit Iceland one day. I (Robin) have friends who went trekking in Iceland a few years ago on the Icelandic ponies and had a blast. Being a horse person, I adored your photo of the horses. Thanks so much for sharing your trip!

Irish1223 Robin, thanks for reading. Icelandic horses and those long manes were everywhere! Wish we had gone for a ride along a black sand beach, next time!

Your photos are amazing! One day....