I was frankly surprised I slept as well as I did the previous night, given the video-game-playing 20-somethings above us. However, I still woke up way earlier than I would have liked on account of the early daylight you get in August this close the Arctic Circle. After the alarm went off, we showered and went to breakfast. Though there were at least 10 cars in the parking lot when we went to sleep there was only one other family in the breakfast area. The breakfast itself was perhaps a little bit more meagre than some but still better than most North American continentals. As we were leaving we did see a few more people entering it for breakfast but it was the least busy of an of the places we stayed with breakfast.
We back down to the Ring Road with a brief stop at Glaumbær museum before we got there.
At the Ring Road, we filled up our tire again. Then we headed west over a pass down into a land with a lot fewer hills and mountains, though still some. The Ring Road does meet the sea at Akureyri so I technically lied a few posts ago, but it’s at the head of a fjord and does not feel like the see. But at Blönduós it follows the coast of a much shallower fjord and so really does feel like you’re back on the sea for the first time since Reyðarfjörður, days ago and, in terms of experiences, seemingly much longer.
We drove along the head of Húnafjörður, more of a bay than a fjord, and then along the lake at just below it. I began looking for our turnoff to Hvitserkur, a prominent, weird-looking rock on the west side of Húnafjörður that is a favourite of photographers. We kept driving and drive. Eventually I started to get worried and asked Jenn to look up the road. We soon understood why we hadn’t encountered it yet: the access road is way south of Húnafjörður – if you are coming from the east you have to drive way past it. Once we realized it was 30km one way on a gravel road we decided to pass. I have driven on only a few gravel roads in Iceland but all of them were rough, very hard to keep at even 60 on them because of the huge number of deep potholes. This was going to be our longest day of driving of the trip so we figured we should just keep going.
If you read blogs about the Ring Road, you get the impression that the stretch between Akureyri and Borgarnes (if you are driving counterclockwise like us) is rather devoid of anything. It’s mostly inland, with few sites and apparently even fewer services. That’s the impression you get. But that’s…just not remotely true. Much like the rest of the Ring Road, there are stretches where there is nothing and there are aren’t stretches where there is stuff. I’d argue that the stretch between Egilsstaðir and Mývatn (again, going counterclockwise) is far more barren both in terms of terrain and services. It’s shorter, sure, but there’s also nothing. That’s not true in the northwest. There is the odd village with gas and food, there’s the odd hotel and then, eventually, a full-blown modern service centre like you’d find on the 401, which we absolutely had not seen before.
But before we got to the service centre we had to make a decision about route. We were headed to Snæfellsnes. We decided to go there instead of the Westfjords because of how much farther off the Ring Road Westfjords is. Like we would have had to add at least an additional day to the trip to even make it to Westfjords let alone see anything. Snæfellsnes is actually really close to Reykjavik but if you are doing the Ring Road the way we did it’s out of your way as you return to Reykjavik. So we had to decide which of three roads to take onto the peninsula. We had three choices: a) a potentially partially gravel but partially paved road that we’d have to backtrack to but then would go straight to the north side of the peninsula, b) a supposedly paved road near the service centre that would meet up with the supposedly paved part of the previous road and c) a definitely paved road at the base of the peninsula that was much farther away from us and much closer to Reykjavik but also would put us closer to our guesthouse. Also, if we stayed on the Ring Road there would be some things we could see that we’d have to make a detour for on the way to Reykjavik if we didn’t see them today.
To make things more difficult, there appeared to be no consensus on which roads are paved and which are gravel. Google said one thing. My map had different information. I found a supposedly definitive website online with different information from Google and my map. All agreed that the farthest road was paved but not on the conditions of the other two routes. Later, when we reached the Snæfellsnes visitor centre, we encountered a fourth version. I still don’t know which was the definitive one, though I assume it was the visitor centre map. (You’d hope so!) I did later see the end of the road across the top of the peninsula that multiple sources said was paved and it was 100% gravel, at least where it met the paved road I was on. Given the unclear information, and how slow we found driving on gravel roads in Iceland so far, we decided to be safe and drive all the way to Borgarnes to take the for sure paved road. The upside is that we got to see some stuff on the Ring Road and to the east of it (i.e. the opposite direction of Snæfellsnes).
So, we made this decision (while driving!) and found our way to the service centre. Again, this was the most modern one we encountered – one of only a couple – so don’t listen to people who claim there is nothing in this area and that you just have to stock up on gas and food before you go. There’s lots of gas and some food.
Then we found our way to Grábrók. Given that it was a nice, warm day – either the nicest or the second nicest at this point – and that we had avoided going up at least one crater earlier, we figured we should climb this one. Also, Grábrók is hilariously accessible for an Icelandic crater, with a boardwalk all the way up and partially around it. (Compare that to the tracks you usually have to use to go up anything.)
Remember how I said that geothermal area and our hotel was windy the other day? Well, this was…somehow windier. Fortunately, it was really warm, so the wind didn’t make us cold. But it was insane and it felt like we would get blown off the side. There was a tour there with people too old to be climbing something in that kind of wind and the guide was literally running around between them making sure they were okay. Check out Jenn’s video on Facebook, that only gives a hint. But we survived and we got to climb our crater. There were great views and the sun was out.
Then we drove a bit farther and encountered another gas station with food and a store not all that far from Grábrók. After getting gas, we turned off the road to go to Háafell.
Háafell is a goat farm where you can pay (a fair amount of money) to pet goats and where they have all sorts of goat products. I wanted to buy the cheese but we didn’t have enough time to eat it. (We were pretty sure it wouldn’t be allowed into Canada.)
So then I fucked up. We were just down the road from Barnafoss and Hraunfossar but somehow I missed that. Barnafoss and Hraunfossar are two unique waterfalls that are very different form the usual Icelandic waterfall in their width and how they come through lava fields. Instead I dragged us to an extremely important hot spring that just wasn’t that much to look at. Deildartunguhver is the site of a plant that pumps its water into Icelandic homes and businesses and the site of a tourist hot spring (Krauma) but all it is, if you don’t go in the tourist bath, is really hot water bubbling up from the ground. It’s certainly something to see if it’s on your way – or if this will be your choice for a tourist bath – but it’s not really something to go out of your way to.
So then we drove to Borgarnes and turned on to the road to Snæfellsnes. Not long after we started driving out there it began to rain. Earlier it had been virtually cloudless and some of the nicest weather we had all trip. But as soon as we got to Snæfellsnes, rain. As we continued to drive, it got worse. We were going to go up Eldborg – or at least think about it – but when we got there, not only was there no real parking area but the rain was sideways (for basically the only time on our trip – we had great weather). So we decided to keep going and went to Gerðuberg.
Gerðuberg is a cliff of basalt columns that runs for a while. It was less rainy but still really windy and so we just looked at them from the car and Jenn got out to take a picture.
Along with driving to Reykjavik the next day, this was our worst rain of the trip.
So then we headed to the visitor’s centre, which closed at 4 for some reason. We got there just in time to use the toilet and get something like 50 suggestions of things to do in 45 seconds from the guy there who clearly just wanted us to use the toilets and leave so he could go home.
We next drove to Ytri Tunga to see the seals. The road in was awful though they are building a new one as I write this. There was a cluster of people down the coast on a bunch of rocks so we went out there. When we first got out there we thought maybe there weren’t any seals. But eventually we did see 2-3. We didn’t get a picture though because they were too fast.
I guess there are a lot more when the weather is nicer, or something. Because there are signs everywhere telling you how to behave around the seals and this a country that doesn’t really do signs like that very often.
We figured it was still too early to give up for the day so we drove past our guest house to Bjarnarfoss.
A few people there convinced themselves there was a trail to the top, rather than just half way. (At many waterfalls there are trails but they are well marked.) When we were getting back in the car I could see them struggling to get down and I was once again reminded about how people who do not normally scramble do not ever think about heading down until they have to. And then, oops.
From there, we could see our next destination, Búðir, so we drove over to it.
Weirdly there were more people here than at the falls but I guess that’s because there’s only one black church but literally thousands of waterfalls. The really strange thing about this place is that there is a hotel next to it and absolutely nothing else. The hotel is very expensive and, on this particular day, not in a location we would describe as pleasant. I’m sure it’s nice when the sun’s out but when it’s rainy and windy it’s hard to imagine dropping $500 per night to stay in the middle of nowhere just so you are steps from the black church.
It was getting later so we headed back east to our guesthouse. This was also a rather large guesthouse with lots of rooms. But this one was basically a hotel because we had a bathroom and a TV. (Not everyone gets a bathroom at this place.) They also offer dinner, but we decided to go into one of the villages near Búðir.
Arnarstapi is the first one as you go east on the sideroad that goes around the end of Snæfellsnes. We picked the second place we saw, a café that would have a pretty great view of the ocean – despite being the the land side of the street – if it wasn’t so rainy. And we had just an excellent meal and I’m not sure how because it was just a café where you ordered at the counter. I had basically a lobster bisque with various fish in it, and a ton of cream on top (including savoury whipped cream). And Jenn had far and away the best burger either of us encountered in Iceland. And this place is just, like, a place to grab coffee, and ice cream when it’s nice out.
After dinner we headed back to the guesthouse and had a drink at the restaurant/bar. There a guy from Utah approached us and we chatted about our trips. He was going the same direction as us with a slightly shorter length of time but maybe a bit more of a willingness to spend money. (He payed for a flight over Vatnajökull.)