Day 6 Snaefellsnes Peninsula

We woke up to another beautiful day.  It’s partly cloudy today but not too windy so it’s not as cold.  That said the temperature last night went down to 19 degrees Fahrenheit.  Today is Sunday.  We had another late start.  There was no breakfast at this hotel so we made do with coffee and croissants and apple.  We finally headed out at 11:45 a.m.

Our first stop today is Arnarstapi.  We will do a 3 mile walk to Hellnar Cliff.  Actually, our first stop was to get gas.  We ran into a couple from London who were trying to also get gas but were not able to due to the pin credit card thing.  Rick let them use his debit card and they gave us cash.  Good deed for the day.

On the way to Arnarstapi, we stopped at the Kirjufell Mountain for some photos.  This mountain is the famous mountain that many photos are taken for Snaefellsnes Peninsula.

Rick note: for those of you who are Game of Thrones fans (the best TV series ever), here is what the mountain looked like in that series.

Some photos of the drive in Snaefellsnes.

Rick note: I find the above picture really cool.  A small bit of the top part is actual flowing water and all the rest is pure ice.  My cousin, Missy, is an ice climber and I was thinking I might want to ice climb up this waterfall but I remembered I had left my ice axes, helmet and crampons at the hotel...bummer...😜

This part of Iceland gets really cold so most of the water freezes including any bays or lakes.  Some streams are totally frozen while other have a little bit of flow.  Water in Iceland is everywhere.  It is so different from California.  All our accomodations have had rain shower heads and copious water pressure.  Today, I noticed our lodging host turning on that tap outside to keep the water flowing through the night so it does not freeze.  Water usage is just not a concept here.  

Another thing that is very different in Iceland from California is any type of outdoor landscaping.  I know it is still winter but very, very few home-owners in Iceland have any landscaping on their properties.  Pretty much just the house, no trees, no bushes, no flowers, nothing.  The Icelandic people seem very practical on this topic.

When we reached Arnarstapi, we stopped at the Barour Saga Saefellsass statue.  This is the Snaefellsnes deity, the guardian spirit Barour.  

We next drove all the way to the end of the road where we began our 3 miles walk.  This is a walk along the coast.  Leslie, this walk reminds me of the Monterey coast walk except MUCH colder.  That also reminds me, you know I wrote earlier that it was less windy today?  Never mind that, it’s still very windy.  Still, it was a nice walk.  Some pictures that we took along the way.

Stone bridge - Midgja

Arnarstapi Arch

Across from the trail is the Snaefellsnes glacier.

 We are now just driving along the coast and stopping at various places.

Malarrif Lighthouse

The  Svortulok lighthouse was our last stop.  Interestingly, this lighthouse used to be red.  We had to drive on a very bumpy gravel road for 6 km to reach it.  It reminded me of our Monument Valley trip where the  SUV that we rented to drive around Utah was a lot more squeaky after some of those gravel roads in Monument Valley.  It’s a good thing that I don’t get motion sickness because I am blogging as Rick navigates this very bumpy road.  

    Svortuloft Lighthouse

It’s now 5:45 p.m. and time to head back to the hotel.  We are staying at the Kirjufell guesthouse tonight and it’s about 50 minutes from the lighthouse, in the town of Grundarfjordur.

Settled in, we went to the Harbour Cafe for dinner.  Rick ordered the lamb soup and something called Plokkfiskur (traditional Icelandic fish pie served with rye bread) and I ordered the baked lamb.  The food was very good.  The lamb here is less gamey than that in the states.

Rick's note: I don't know anything about gamey lamb but I know that milk chocolate I had was super tasty...although a bit of whipped cream would not have hurt, I am just sayin'.

Rick's note: it is late and I am tired, so not much to say today but here are some of my favorite landscape pictures from the day and video from our final stop.  I will note that birds are everywhere along the coast of Iceland.  It seems to be a good place to be a bird.  It is sometimes difficult to identify what is snow and what is other white stuff.  No puffins seen, Deb.  I don't think it is puffin season yet.

No northern lights tonight.  The clouds covered the sky so no lights.  It even snowed a bit.  Hopefully, I will see some tomorrow.