Iceland Days 5-7
After a late start, we made the decision to make the trip to the Westfjords. It was a long haul drive, but Dana wanted to maximize the time that she had here, and I agreed. But, before we started our journey, we did a quick detour to check out the Snæfellsjökull glaciers by F575 and Road 570. Snæfellsjökull is a glacier capped volcano that stands around 4700 ft tall and the volcano itself is over 70,000 years old!
By this point, every road in Iceland just seems so scenic and even though it has only been a week, it starts to all look the same. I can see how locals get numb to all this beauty since they see this everyday. The glacier was pretty, but wasn’t as impressive as Jokulosan Glacier. Either road was pretty easy to get to it, but if you are concerned just taking 570 is no trouble at all. We spent a little time up at the top, but quickly made our way to the Westfjords.
The Westfjords is an extremely beautiful area of Iceland that is much less touristy than the main Ring Road as it is a little bit out of the way and much smaller villages. The drive was long but of course very scenic. We slowly made our way to our first stop, Rauðasandur Beach. This is one of the few beaches in Iceland that is not with black sand. The main reason the sand is not black is because the Westfjords no longer have an active volcano. This means that the sand doesn’t get covered by the ashy sands you see around most of Iceland.
At Rauðasandur, you start off near a picturesque church where you park your car. You then walk through some pretty grasslands making your way to the beach. To get to the waves, it is a 10-15 minute walk. The day we went was pretty windy so it made it a little more challenging. The sand has some little black sands as well that made some beautiful patterns in the red sand. Once done at the beach, we went to the close by Melanes Campground. It has its own little red sand beach as well as a beautiful waterfall view. We got there a little earlier in the day than usual but didn’t mind since it was a lot of driving, so we spent the night just resting and researching.
The following day, we headed out to go see the Látrabjarg Cliff. Látrabjargvis home to the the largest seabird colonies in Iceland. Over a million seabirds use these cliffs as their home. From puffins, fulmar, razorbill, and many more species, this is a bird watchers dream. The closer we got to the cliffs, the worse the weather got. Once we got there, it was all wind and rain. We made the effort to walk to the cliffs to see the birds, but once there the winds were so strong that it was pushing us around, so we quickly made our way back to the car. It seemed the birds had the same idea as most were just resting in their nest.
Once we made our way back to the main road, we made a quick stop at the shipwreck, Gardar BA 64. Gardar BA 64 is the oldest steel ship from Iceland. Launched as a whaling ship in 1912, it was in service all the way until 1981. It actually isn’t a wreck as it was just left there and was not used due to safety concerns. It was a nice little stop and it could actually be a good picnic area if someone needs a break.
Our next stop in the Westfjords was Dynjandi Waterfall. For a while, Skogafoss was my favorite waterfall, but Dynjandi Waterfall took the top of the list. The largest waterfall in the Westfjords, it stands at around 100 meters. At the base, you get a view of a smaller waterfall along with the main attraction. From there, you can hike all the way up to the highest viewpoint, with 6 other waterfalls you can see along the way. It is a popular tourist spot, so there is a crowd you have to deal with during peak hours.
By this time, we were getting a little hungry, and of course Dana found a place that had waffles. So we went to the Simbaholin Cafe. It is a cute little cafe in an old house in Þingeyri. The cafe was a timber house imported from Norway in 1915. It served as a general store, video store, book store, and now a little cafe. I got a croissant while Dana got a soup. We also split the waffle, which was good but nothing compared to Belgium. At the N1 gas station, we got a couple of more hot dogs to compare, and to Dana and I, Orkan had the better one at this point.
On the way to the Seal lookout, we drove through the interesting tunnel, Vestfjarðagöng. Vestfjarðagöng is the longest tunnel in Iceland at 6 miles long. Opened in 1996, there is one direction that has the right of way while the other side has pull-outs that they are required to use in order to let the traffic through. We stopped at a lookout point, where I met a mother and son who recognize my truck from Reddit. We had a quick chat about how I get it here and such. Turns out, they were actually the family of one of our ambassadors at the company. It was such a small world!
The Seal lookout is exactly what you think it is, a spot to look at seals. We did see a seal pup, which crossed another animal off of Dana’s list. Finally, we ended the day at a campsite next to a hotel. It was actually a bit creepy and reminded me of an abandoned Eastern European country. It did have a nice heated pool next to it, but they charged more for the use of it. With the weather being what it was, we had dinner and watched Arther The King before we went to bed.
The next day would be our last day on the Westfjords. If I had more time, I would have done one of the better known Froad, 622, but the timing didn’t work out. That road requires low tide or the tide going out since during high tide the road is washed out. In fact, the tide is so strong if a car is caught out there, it gets destroyed by the waves. Once we woke up, we headed to Holmavik to do a hike that Dana found. It was a beautiful hike and nice workout, but the main reason we went was to see some pretty flowers. Unfortunately since the weather was so cold, the flowers weren’t blooming as much as they could have. It was a good way to see the little village.
Once back on the road, we made our way down Road 35. Road 35 used to be an F-Road, but now is considered a regular road. Honestly, out of all the roads I’ve done in my month there, this road was by far the worse condition, and of course this first time I went down it, I was too lazy to air down. My truck’s suspension still faired well with it and was still passing slower rentals, but I should have taken the time to air down. Make sure you have gas because road 35 is long. We then made our way to the Hveradalir Hot Springs, but with the weather so bad, we decided to do it the next day. We stopped for the night at the Kerlingarfjoll campground. Unfortunately they had no non-electricity spot open, so I paid more than I needed to, but we needed a spot close to Hveradalir for the night.
