Iceland – Day 7

Friday July 17

Friday was the day we said goodbye to Betina. We had a nice breakfast at Guesthouse Hoff before Anders took her to the airport in Keflavik. We had time for a few pictures around Guesthouse Hof before the rest of us took off.

 

 

Rauðfeldar Canyon

Aase, Thorkild, Philip, and I went back towards Snæfellsnes and our first stop was Rauðfeldar Canyon just east of the park.

 

 

The story goes that Baldur who was half man and half troll had two beautiful daughters. One day his two nephews Rauðfeldar and Solvi played with his oldest daughter Helga and by accident threw her in the water where she ended up on an iceberg that drifted off to Greenland (fortunately Helga survived the trip). However, Baldur got so angry that he threw Rauðfeldar into the canyon that was then named after him. Solvi was thrown off nearby cliffs. Baldur himself walked into the glacier and was never seen again.

We walked up towards Rauðfeldar Canyon; a small creek had carved its way through the mountain and it looked like the mountain was split into two.

 

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The creek just outside the canyon.

 

 

To get into the cave, we pretty much had to walk through the creek. There were rocks to step on but it was not completely straight forward. Philip, Thorkild, and I took the challenge and none of us got wet feet.

 

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Inside the cave we could see the blue skies and some lucky people would also see Baldur. We didn’t. Instead we birds flying over the canyon. Also, outside the canyon was lots of birds and flowers.

 

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An image showing the inside of the cave, upstream. The small white spots seen in the picture are small piles of snow.

 

 

A few pictures from the way back to the parking lot.

 

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Arnarstapi

After Rauðfeldar Canyon we drove into Arnarstapi. We ran into no other than…. terns.

 

 

We walked down to the water where we saw this monument.

 

 

We continued down to the water.

 

 

We walked on the cliffs near the water for a while. It was a very windy day, it didn’t rain fortunately but the wind was not that warm.

 

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Amazing basalt cliffs.

 

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And a few more birds.

 

 

And a few more nesting birds.

 

 

Thorkild and I wanted to go on a glacier tour on the volcano Snæfellsjökull whereas Philip and Aase preferred to spend the time on the beach and cliffs instead.

While Thorkild and I were on the glacier tour, Philip and Aase had a good time bird watching and exploring. Here are a few images from Arnastapi that Aase took.

 

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While Thorkild and I were on the trip to Snæfellsjökull, one tern attached Aase and actually hit her in the head with its beak.

Snæfellsjökull

The glacier trip to Snæfellsjökull started in Arnarstapi. 

 

 

We got on a bus that transported us up the mountain on a fairly narrow F road.

 

 

When we got to the foot of the glacier we got out of the bus and continued the trip to the top in a snow-cat. I think we were about 40 people in the snow-cat and we all had blankets to sit on and cover our legs. On the way up, Thorkild and I were almost in the middle of the snow-cat and we didn’t have a very good view.

We did get a selfie though.

 

 

It took maybe 20 minutes to get to the top, the snow-cat was noisy and worked hard while producing a lot of exhaust from the engine. It was overcast and very windy.

 

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Not surprisingly, the wind was even stronger at the top of the mountain compared to Arnarstapi. I had borrowed Philip’s hat which I was very, very happy for. The hat was a little too big for me but if I kept the hood of my rain jacket on, the hat didn’t fly off. The area on the top was not that big. We walked around a little but we could only see a few meters. The sun was trying to get through the clouds.

 

 

Thorkild got this great image of the very top of the volcano after the sun burned through some of the clouds.

 

 

A boy and his dad had joined us in the snow-cat at the foot of the glacier with their skis. They walked to the very top of the mountain and skied down.

 

 

We also saw several groups of hikers that had actually walked to the top. They were tied together with rope.

 

 

Selfie from the top.

 

 

And a few other pictures.

 

 

We were on the top for a little while and suddenly there was a break in the cloud cover for a few moments. This only lasted for a couple of minutes, and the top of the mountain would be completely covered in clouds again. It oscillated like that for a while and we were able to see the landscape around the volcano and the water for a few moments on and off.

 

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We got back into the snow-cat and this time Thorkild and I got a better spot.

 

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We were higher up and were able to see much more.

 

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We took more pictures on the way down.

 

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In the parking area where we switched back to the bus, kids were riding snow scooters and a guy had optimistically brought his bike.

 

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Guesthouse Snjofell

When we got back from the glacier trip we met up with Philip and Aase at Guesthouse Snjofell in Arnarstapi where we had lunch. On the way to the restaurant we walked by a house in a field full of terns. It was unbelievable how many birds were there.

 

 

We had a nice lunch at Guesthouse Snjofell and we were sitting outside. Fortunately we found a good spot out of the wind.

Northern part of Snæfellsnes

After lunch we continued our clockwise drive up to the northern part of the peninsula. I have to admit it, I felt asleep in the car so I can’t report anything from when we left Arnarstapi until we parked in front of the park office in Hellisandur. We got there just as they were closing but the park ranger let us in anyway and we talked to her for a little while.

We were not really set on the next place to go and at first we drove to Olafsvik to go for a hike but decided against it when we got there. We drove back a few kilometers and found a small airstrip, Flugvöllur-Rifi. Behind the airstrip was wetland. It was quite wet and at first not very interestingly looking.

 

 

Rivers were running through the area too and there should also be a waterfall, Svöðufoss. We never saw the waterfall; we would have to cross the rivers which was not possible from where we were.

 

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It turned out that the wetland area was spectacular. Philip walked in one direction to look for birds and Aase, Thorkild, and I went in the other to look for plants. We found a lot and I mean a lot of butterworts. They were very happy and healthy looking. It was also the perfect place for them. We also found orchids.

 

 

There are – supposedly – sundews in Iceland and this place looked very promising, wet and lots and lots of peat moss. However, we never found any sundew while we were there.

Dinner

We drove back to Guesthouse Hof, noodled around for a few minutes before we left for dinner at the restaurant next door, Guesthouse Langaholt. This time we actually got some pictures of the food.

 

 

I took a couple of images showing reflections inside the restaurant. Here is one of them:

 

 

After we finished dinner, this vehicle was parked in the parking lot.

 

 

We went back to Hof. Next day was travel day so we had to pack up our stuff. The day had come to an end and we were tired.

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