Iceland – Day 3

Monday July 13, 2015

Guesthouse Drangshlíð

Iceland in July, that means lots of daylight. The day we arrived, sunrise and sunset were at 3:34 am and 11:33 pm, respectively. During the time we were in Iceland, the day got shorter by 38 minutes. Not that we really noticed, it never got really dark throughout our stay. It was light when we got up in the mornings and it was light when we went to bed.

Guesthouse Drangshlíð consists of several houses with rooms. We stayed in the white house in the back next to the big cliffs.

 

 

The cliffs were home to many birds and sheep were grazing on the steep slopes. 

 

 

The rooms in the guesthouse were smallish but we didn’t need more space. The sink was interesting as the sink itself was small and the faucet was somewhat large which resulted in problems with face washing and mouth rinsing. Also, even though there were two beds in each room, there was only one hook for towels. A cool thing was the radiant floor heat which we took advantage of on the rainy days; we just put our wet clothes on the floor to let them dry. The house where our rooms were located also had a living area with a small kitchenette. The kitchenette had a sink, cabinets, and a hot water boiler.

On Monday morning, Anders and Betina slept in a little. Later they went fishing in a lake. Aase, Thorkild, Philip, and I got up fairly early. Our plan was to explore the area around Vik. We had breakfast at the guesthouse, a typical Icelandic hotel breakfast consisting of a buffet with bread, cheese, cucumbers, eggs, tomatoes, surmjölk, coffee, etc. Since we were unfamiliar with Iceland and the opportunities for food in the field we got lunch sandwiches from the guesthouse. The sandwiches were “make your own using the breakfast material” plus juice and cookies. It was very, very expensive so that was the one and only time we did that.

Visitor Center and Eyjafjallajökull

Our first stop was a visitor center down the road. The volcano Eyjafjallajökull was just behind both Guesthouse Drangshlíð and the visitor center.

 

 

The visitor center was small and equipped with a movie theater that showed a movie about the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in 2010. This was the famous eruption that caused a lot of air traffic problems. We did not feel like watching the movie. Philip bought a nice Icelandic hat at the visitor center. A good purchase since it was cold and rainy.

 

 

Reynisfjara Beach

Then we took off for Reynisfjara Beach , Black Sand Beach. On the way there we saw a big field of grass full of birds. We made a quick stop. Only Philip got out, as it was raining. The photo below is taken the end of the field; not where the birds were. Except for the black one dot, that’s actually a bird. If you stare at the picture long enough the bird will flap its wings. Seriously. 

 

 

When we got to the parking lot at Reynisfjara Beach, Aase and I put on rain pants and we kept them on the rest of the day. It did actually rain pretty much all day.

Reynisfjara Beach is a beautiful place: black sand (or fine rock), beach, and basalt columns.

 

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One of my favorite photos taken by Philip:

 

 

There was several shallow caves in the cliffs too.

 

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Birds were nesting and roosting on the sides of cliffs.

 

 

Some plants were hanging on for dear life.

 

 

Philip spotted them first: puffins in the water. Puffins! They are just so cute!

 

 

We also saw cairns on the beach.

 

 

It was great to walk on the beach to take in the scenery.

 

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In the background was the peninsula Dyrhólaey, another amazing formation.

 

 

Thorkild was making a pH measurement of the water at Reynisfjara Beach. While collecting the water, he was surprised by a big wave. Result, he was soaking wet on both legs, from the top of the legs to the bottom, including water in the shoes. It was raining anyway but it was a good soak.

After spending a long time on the beach, we went to the restaurant by the parking lot for coffee and cake. Skyr cake, yum. We were all a little chilly at that point so sitting inside with a warm drink and cake was great. Philip also had a soup.

 

 

VIK

After food and cake we went into Vik with the primary goal to buy some dry socks for Thorkild. Before we went sock hunting, we stopped at the tourist information. Then we went to a huge souvenir store where they sold Icelandic sweaters, other clothes, and tacky souvenirs. The huge Viking helmet right inside the door was not very charming and did not encourage us to buy anything but socks.

Kirkjufjara Beach

We drove to Kirkjufjara Beach where we ate our lunch in the car. It was still raining and this was one of our first views:

 

 

We walked out on a cliff to look over the ocean.

 

 

Even though it rained, we decided to go for a hike on the cliffs along the shore. It was a wonderful view from up there.

 

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Some sections were quite steep, a good part of the path was lava rocks, and it rained. And then, here it was, a puffin close up. He/she was just sitting there posing in the rain. We took lots of pictures.

 

 

Both Thorkild and Philip were very wet; in fact Thorkild was more wet at that point than after his encounter with the ocean. We could see Dyrhólaey Lighthouse but we were not that close and due to the rain, we decided to call it a day. Thus, we hiked back to the car and headed back to Dragshlid.

 

 

Solheimajökull glacier

Even though we were wet and it was still raining, we stopped at the Solheimajökull glacier on the way to the guesthouse. We only walked a few minutes to see the front of the snow, took a couple of pictures, got back in the car, and headed back to Drangshlíð.

 

 

Drangshlíð

When we got back to Drangshlíð we sat in the living room and had coffee and tea that Aase had brought from home. At that point we found out that the kitchenette was only equipped with a couple of cups in the cabinet and a pacifier in the utensils drawer.

Anders and Betina came back shortly after we did. They had a great fishing day even though they did not really catch anything.

In the evening we went to the guesthouse restaurant for dinner. They had a nice bean burger for the vegetarians on the menu and other nice food for the carnivores, including some fishy dishes.

 

 

After dinner we had beer and wine in the living room (in the house where our rooms were located.) Anders and Betina had stopped at the liquor store to get supplies on the way back from the fishing trip. It got late, when it is still light outside it is easy to lose track of time. But to bed we went after a long day.

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