Westfjords - Southern region

Hi!

For those of you who are wondering, Iceland has about the same square miles as Virginia. So imagine driving the circumference of Virginia with daily excursions to see the sights. Of course we are going slowly, over four weeks.

Driving to the Westfjords on Friday was a long driving day. It started with 67 km (40 miles) of packed gravel road with not too much traffic but many one-lane bridges. 

If you open this picture and zoom in you will see an example of the windy, crazy roads.

We got to Budardalur and stopped for gas and carrot cake at the Leif Erikson house. According to legend, he was born in Iceland and moved to Greenland.  On a return trip back to Greenland he was blown of course and discovered North America, likely Labrador, several hundred years before Columbus.

It is SUPER windy again! We have asked locals and they say this wind is crazy?!?!?! It is not us exaggerating! This makes the driving a bit challenging to say the least!  This is one of our longest drives. We drove from the circle on the bottom left to the circle on the top left.

It was a windy, wild drive!

We stopped at a thermal bath but were disappointed 😞 - there was no water in the pot.

We decided to take a quick hike instead. We were following the green route, a quick 45 min circuit (according to the sign). It was just us and the sheep. We walked and walked, crossing little streams, up and down, faithfully following the green signposts - and never got anywhere. We finally turned back. We were a little irritated, gotta be honest. Here's a picture before we realized the futility of the journey.

By the end the hat was off, jacket unzipped, etc. definitely got warmed up.

Back on the road, we fought the wind for two more hours but saw spectacular views (None to share here, sorry. Few places to safely pull over and the few there are pop up out of nowhere).

We made this our home for the following three nights and WOW! what a view!

Super remote and cozy. We brought food for three days because there is not much nearby.

We started the day with an easy hike to a waterfall. It was about an hour total. Perfect!

The view of the fjord was gorgeous!

The next stop was another thermal pool. We keep our bathing suits and towels in the car in case we come upon a spot. 

There was a shallow 'natural' pool and a bigger pool overlooking the fjord. The water was nice and toasty making the 50 degree air temperature no problem at all.

There were nice changing rooms and all they wanted was a donation. So cool!

We found a good place to have our sandwiches for lunch. These birds were nearby. Looking back at this bird near its nest should have been a foreshadowing.

The church in Bildudalur. 

We found another hike near Talknafjordur. The promised waterfall never really materialized but the Lupine flowers were awesome.

The signage left something to be desired.

We found another thermal pool, again donation only with nice changing room. Putting the cold wet bathing suit on was no fun but the water was warm and we were the only ones there!

The view of the fjord - and Carsten's feet.

We headed for the bigger town of Patreksfjordur to find a place to watch the Germany match. 

First stop was a gas station that had ice cream and was showing the Netherlands/Sweden match. We chatted with a very drunk local about football. He left when we did, walking his bike home. Iceland has a zero tolerance policy for drinking and driving. To kill some time we got dinner - it was soooo good. I had Halibut and Carsten had Salmon. Best meal since we got to Iceland! Then off to watch the game (back at the gas station restaurant where our now completely drunk buddy showed up again). The game was exciting but the place closed in the 89th minute. We missed Germany's winning goal.

Sunday was a day for birds and beautiful vistas! We went to the Cliffs of Latrarbjarg where tens of thousands of birds come to nest during the summer months. The drive up there was harrowing, one-lane gravel, hairpin turns, blind corners and small bridges. I tried to take a picture but there is just no way to understand such a road without experiencing it (which I highly recommend)!

We saw Puffin.

We saw a Black-Legged Kittiwake

Razorbill

Brünnich's Guillemot

The edges of the path are soft so you must lay down to look down at the birds, Sheri demonstrates:

And the vistas

Next up is the Red-Sand Beach. Another crazy drive to get over the mountain down to the fjord. 

We took a little walk to get out to the flats, there were long grass fields on either side of the (very wide) trail. Unfortunately for us, the local birds nearby did not think we were far enough away from their nests. They started dive-bombing us!!! One actually hit me in the head!!! That certainly was an adventure! We started talking to a German couple and decided to walk back in a group, power in numbers and all that!

There is always time for a coffee break!

Beautiful scenery!

Lest you think everything goes super smoothly for us, Saturday morning we got in the car and went back three times for things we had forgotten. Sunday morning we got 3 miles down the road before realizing we had left our jackets! We better get this right before we check-out! LOL

Monday we started our day with a thermal pool - I mean, why not!?

This thermal pool was very close to our little house. It was called Laugarnessundlaug. We hung out there for about an hour before heading to Dynjandi.

This series of waterfalls did not disappoint! We hiked up to the biggest falls (Dynjandi, meaning thunder, 100 meters tall). There are five smaller falls on the way up.

We ate our lunch at the top and then made our way back down to the car. Now on to Isafjordur.

Until next time, take care.

Sheri + Carsten