Iceland 2.3: A flying puffin, the westfjord waterfall, and a bizarre tunnel

     We woke up at about ten in the morning and left camp around 10:45.  According to google, Puffins are most often seen between seven and ten in the morning.  We decided to go back to Latrabjarg anyway to try our luck.  My goal was to get a flying puffin, since the day before I missed all of them.  We walked farther up the cliffside this time, where more nonpuffins had their nests.  We saw a black bird carrying an egg in its mouth and some smaller white birds there.  Back towards the lower cliffs, there were a handful of puffins.  We pondered about whether these remaining puffins were the disabled and elderly, left behind for the day.  I had some luck and caught one flying down.  If he were disabled, he would probably just have fallen.

    

        After an hour on the cliffs, we left for the much talked about Dynjandi waterfall.  Our gps wanted us to double back where we came before heading north, so I decided to have us go first to a small town along the coast north of us called Vesturbyggð, and then cut northeast through the mountains for a more scenic route.  We stopped in town at the gas station with a restaurant.  They had two diesel pumps, unlike all of the other gas stations I had encountered thus far.  I grabbed the nearest one.  Unbeknownst to be, this was meant for trucks, which have a different sized gas tank opening, and when I tried to pump gas, it sprayed back onto me, soaking my hands.

    The restaurant was good except they forgot Stephanie's order of fries.  They took it off our bill.  One thing that was a bit unusual was that they offered coffee for free.

    We stopped on a dirt path to take pictures of an unnamed waterfall, saw an interest house, and had many incredible views on the way to Dynjandi Falls.

        At least an hour of the drive was again upon a gravel road through the mountains before arriving on a circular paved path in front of the Dynjandi Falls.  There were also very nice bathrooms, which made me happy.  There were at least five different falls, with one leading into the other, with a massive one on top.  Unfortunately, I messed up these pictures, so I only really have one semi presentable one, along with the view opposite the falls.  Here they are-

    Our final destination for the day was Isafjordur.  We ended up taking an extremely long tunnel through a mountain that did not show up on our gps.  The tunnel was incredibly unique.  It was one lane, with pullover areas for cars to pass one another.  Two thirds through the tunnel, there was a three way intersection with cars coming from a third direction.  I don't recall ever quite seeing that before.

    Finally, we were in sight of town.  It extended into the fjord along a narrow stretch of land.  Our camp was just outside of town, underneath a beautiful waterfall that I screwed up the picture of.  Here is the main town.

Iceland 2.2: A glimpse of the sun, views along the road, birding in Iceland

    We woke up to the sound of schoolchildren, having been bussed over by the school to the locked pool complex attached to the campgrounds.  It was sunny outside.  Here is a picture out the door of the camper, where Stephanie is being stuck by a beam of sunlight.

    With sun in the sky, we went back on the bird trails and saw some beautiful birds flying around.

    

    We came back to the camper and headed out, as we had a drive up ahead of us.  The drive started easily enough but soon turned into a gravel road, where we had to slow down to about 35-40 km/h.  It brought us on what to me was an incredibly steep path up a mountain.  What is strange about Icelandic mountains that we have encountered so far on this trip is that many of them are rather flat on top.  We continued on at this incredible slow speed for quite a while.  Another unusual thing about Iceland is that they don't seem to be huge fans of viewing stops on the side of the road.  Icelandic roads are built without a shoulder, so if you fall off the side of the road, it is mostly down a ditch.  We passed many, many incredible views.  When I commented on the lack of places to stop for pictures, Stephanie commented that she views many of the views and sightings as a gift, even if she can't take a picture.  I reminded her that I dislike gifts.  Luckily, I got a few.

    I had marked a few hot springs on our travel map, and so we decided to stop at one.  It was warm enough so we donned bathing suits and shoes and walked a few feet down from a small parking lot.  We shared this hot spring with an elderly couple that spoke mostly french.  It began to rain a bit but we stayed a bit longer.  The pool had what I assume was a bit of algae.  

    A few minutes later and we entered "town," which consisted of a single building which was a combination of restaurant, hotel, and one gas pump.  We filled up and tried to enter for dinner but there was a sign saying it was closed.

    After that first hour or so, the road turned back to paved.  As we turned left toward the final southwestern peninsula in the Westfjords, we encountered a beached ship named Gardar BA 64.  It was rusted and had grass growing in its bottom.  I leaned in at one point, in order to see inside.  When I met Stephanie back in the car, she informed me that we were not supposed to lean in, according to the sign.

Shortly afterward, the road turned gravel again and never turned back.  It was slow going until we reached the campground outpost of Breidavik.  There was a hotel/restaurant with campgrounds.  We paid the attendant in the hotel, and per her advice, drove twenty more minutes down to Latrabjarg, to catch the puffins returning for the night.  After a brief hailstorm, we took a chance and drove over.  We were fortunate in that all precipitation stopped.  We spent an hour birdwatching before turning in for the night.

This was our campsite-

Iceland 2.1: Back to Iceland in a Camper

    After a year of restricted travel, I jumped at the chance to revisit the place that first allowed vaccinated Americans in, Iceland.  This time I decided to rent a camper van, so I can take my time when needed and camp nearly anywhere, as the country has over 170 campsites.  We even got a portable toilet for the camper, which avoids the biggest problem that I have had in nature heavy places such as Scotland.

    We drove to Washington Dulles airport, a seven and a half hour drive, in order to get a direct flight to Iceland.  The international terminal was as empty as I have ever seen an airport.  Regardless, we took the extra precaution of wearing goggles in addition to masks.

    After we picked up our bags in Iceland, we were put in a line to greet customs and to be given a covid test.  There was both a mouth and nose test.  After waiting for an hour or two, we were picked up by our camper van company, and then went straight to a local hotel for early check in and a long nap.  We woke up a few hours later, received the "all clear" from the covid team at the airport, and ventured out.

    Unfortunately, the weather was extremely poor.  It was dark, off and on rainy, and it was the windiest day I have ever experienced in my life to my recollection.  We tried anyway.  Our first stop was the church of Hvalsneskirkja.  I got off two pictures before the wind smacked into me like a brick wall, followed by light rain.  It was so powerful that we both retreated to the van.

    We waited for ten minutes, hoping the rain would stop.  It didn't.  Into town we stopped at a supermarket.  We have a small refrigerator in the camper, so we stocked up.  Paper towels, toilet paper, coffee creamer, skyr yogurt, chips, and some indian wraps.  We had more of course, but in the end the grocery bill was $120.  Iceland isn't the third most expensive country in the world for no reason...

    We moved on south to Bruin milli heimsalfa, the rocky fissure marking the North American and European tectonic plates.  It had stopped raining momentarily, although the wind had no abated.  It was pretty rough until we stepped down into the hole.  Down there we were temporarily relieved of the wind gusts.  

The landscape around this area, especially in the darkness of this particular day, looked utterly alien.

    On the way back to the car the wind was so strong that it felt that I was drowning underwater.  We drove a few more minutes south to the sulfuric smelling hot springs.  I stayed in the car.  Stephanie ran up.  Along the same side road was a beautiful lighthouse and landscape that looked perfect for a short hike but the weather was just too rough.  We went back to the hotel and went to sleep.

    We woke up and had a small buffet breakfast.  I stuck to styr, an Icelandic kind of version of yogurt.  Stephanie told me that it was actually closer to cheese than yogurt.  The hotel had good coffee. We drove away in rain, hoping that weather would improve as we went north as the weather reports indicated.  Once outside of Reykjavik, we stopped at a recommended highly discounted supermarket named Kronan.  We picked up remaining essentials such as coffee to accompany the creamer that we bought at the first supermarket.    

    About halfway to our final destination of the day was Grabrok, a set of craters, one of which you can up and around.  It had stopped raining long enough for get most of the way around.  My height based panic set in along the end of the top circle, just as Stephanie was yelling something about sheep.  As much as I like sheep, I needed to get down, so I rushed on ahead.  Just next to one of the craters was an old sheep pen, according to what Stephanie read.

    We planned to stop at a local farm that had a bunch of animals to interact with, but the rain came back fierce, so we continued on to our final destination of Reykholar, which marked the beginning of our journey through the Westfjords region of Iceland.  We arrived in the small town and went straight to the campground.  The bathroom was functional and there were paths right into the wetland area known for birds.  However, no worker was present and there was no way to pay.

    We took some of the trails but it was pretty dark out.  We saw some birds that we had never seen before, including one in particular that made a sort of ringing noise that sounded like a laser gun.

This birding was landing on the other side of a hot spring, so there was smoke between it and I.