DAY 4, Waterfalls, Waterfalls,even more Waterfalls, and some other stuff- part 1

        After a good night's sleep with the northern lights dancing above us, we woke up at dawn or thereabouts and got ready for what would turn into a long day. We had a great a breakfast and talked to the one of owners of the hotel for awhile. She seemed happy that we were able to see the northern lights and was happy they lasted for so long that night. Lonkot may be the best place we ended up staying at, the atmosphere and shear beauty is something that was and will be a hard thing to match.
         Back on the road heading for our next major stop Akureyri, our shortest drive for the trip at only 124 kilometers, left us time in the day to see three major waterfalls, Dettifoss,Selfoss, and Godafoss. Our first stop was at an monument to Hrafna-Floki Vilgeroarson who is credited with giving Iceland its name, after spending a winter in the Northwestern Fjords. He is considered one of the earliest Nordic explorers to set foot on the Island. Stories about him say that he had three ravens on his ship and he released them somewhere near the Faroe Islands on the hunch they might lead to a rumored new land he had heard about. The first raven flew to the islands he was leaving, the second flew back to his boat and refused to go any further but the third flew northwesterly over the horizon and Floki took that as a sign of land in that direction. It proved to be true and Floki was afterwards known as Hrafna-Floki or raven Floki.

        After a little more driving up through a beautiful valley, full of sheep and sweeping vistas we found ourselves passing through the city of Olafsfjordur a small fishing town that would look just as perfect on the Oregon Coast as it does in Iceland. We saw a few fishing boats and passed near there year round heated city pool and water park, with all the available geothermal energy it makes sense to me that there would be a lot of public outdoor heated pools.

     
          Leaving Olafsfjordur and now heading towards the next town Dalvik we we entered a long tunnel through the mountains. Tunnels aren't uncommon in Iceland and even read about one that intersects with another tunnel in the Northwestern fjords, but was a little disconcerting was the fact that this particular almost 4 kilometer tunnel was only one lane with turn outs in case you meet up with another vehicle. Luckily we didn't, but none the less it was a nervous few minutes. On through Dalvik we drove, another sleepy coastal especially since this was Sunday and everything was closed. In between Dalvik and our goal for the night. Akureyri I saw signs for a beer spa, and beer bath. Both of these things hurt me, as beer is for drinking and only occasionally shaking up so your friend gets sprayed with foam in a comical fashion. Thats all we'll speak on this subject.
       

Nothing bad could happen in here, there's a smiley face

It started good see 2 lanes

and this happened, you can see the light from the pullout in case you encounter another car

  Finally a short while later we arrived in Aukeryri the second largest urban area in Iceland. Its population is somewhere near 19000 people it is 5% of the population.(The Greater Reykjavik area has a population near 217,000 and accounts for nearly 60% of the total country's population). Anyways it lays at the head of the Fjord and has just about everything we could need excepting an open camera shop, as I was having issues with my largest len's neutral density filters that allow me to take the long exposure shots of waterfalls and such. A little irked at the shop not being open we hit the road to our first sightseeing stop Dettifoss waterfall.

DAY 3- BONUS!!! Lonkot and the northern lights.

 We arrived at Lonkot Rural Resort at about 4:30 in the afternoon after a pretty taxing day of driving through some pretty horrible weather. We hadn't bothered to really stop anywhere to eat so we both were pretty weary and hungry. Our host was instantly one of the nicest people we met on our trip and showed us to our room immediately and as she left inquired if we would be dining with them in the restaurant, we decided to and made reservations for 6. She reported that would be having lamb and hopefully cod if the boats arrived in time to deliver fresh fish to her. This is how fresh Icelandic food generally is, we learned that while it may be expensive its quality and flavor generally make it worthwhile. 

After dining on what would be the best meal we had in Iceland, fresh lamb with a blueberry sauce, potatoes and delicious salad for me and cod in a bearnaise and potatoes and salad for Lora, we asked our extremely nice host if there was a chance of seeing the northern lights, since the weather was fairly clear. She replied more than likely not in the levelheaded way Icelander's tend to respond to things. So we went back to our room a little dejected that we would likely not see northern lights this entire trip as we would be in area's with too much light generally after this stay. I consoled myself by taking some photos of the sunset and we planned to take some star photos after dark if it was clear enough.

The fjord was beautiful and sunset took a long time due to being this far north so twilight lingers longer than at our latitude. Finally around 930 at night Lora went to check if stars were visible and came back in and said she could see the northern lights, I jumped up and ran outside and they were visible but weak due to the moon and the farm lights. We went back inside for a while and around 10, I went back out and the moon had set and the northern lights shined brightly across the Fjord, I grabbed the camera and here are some of the shots we garnered. One thing I will say, no photo compares to seeing them in real life, I now know that to be the absolute truth.

Day 3- Part 3 The Long Road to Lonkot

After completing our drive around the Snaefellsnes we needed to turn inland and make our way towards highway 1 known as the ring road. The ring road carries the bulk of both tourist traffic and goods heading to the smaller cities on it. Its 2 lanes in most areas and the winter is often the only road clear of snow and ice. The rest of Iceland's highway system is made up of primary roads (often paved), secondary roads (sometimes paved, more that likely gravel) and the aforementioned F road (4x4 only and some are worse than others, we lucked out on our adventure and went one of the easier ones).We chose to travel on many secondary roads and our suv fared fine and most importantly I believe we saw many more than things than the people who drive only the primary roads and the ring road. We rarely saw other vehicles and the sense and scope of the scenery is amazing. So back to the story..

           To be honest there is not alot to say about most of this day, imagine a cold November storm and your driving at the coast, we fled the storm as quickly as we could but that took most of the day. We stopped a few times for coffee at various places, which is a subject which we should speak on. Icelanders like Coffee and its everywhere which is good. BUT there is a catch as there always is, they seem only drink small cups of it, which is a problem for us as we brought our goat story coffee horns. After not seeing anyone drinking coffee from anything but mugs at places or small and mean small cardboard cups, we finally took our horns into a coffee shop in the lobby of a hotel in the middle of nowhere and asked if they could fill them? The barista/inn keeper said yes and greatly excited I asked for Americano. I stepped away to make use of the watercloset and when I returned she was done filling it. To my great surprise I grabbed my cup and realized she put maybe 6 ounces in it, the same amount as the cardboard cups I was growing to despise. So befuddled but glad to have something to drink we moved on, not stopping for several hundred kilometers until we stopped at a cultural site outside the storm to look at a neat sod church know as Grafarkirkja, originally built in the 17th century and rebuilt in 1953.

Nothing stops sheep from making you stop!

rain everywhere

After taking some time to stretch our legs and enjoy being out of the rain we continued our drive through the small coastal towns dotting Skagafjoudur like Hofsos before coming to a stop at our destination the Lonkot Rural Resort, a small 6 room hotel and resturant in a converted farm. I'd like to say we just called it day and relaxed but that would be a disservice to you the reader but I will be making an entire post just about our stay there...

sod church with surrounding sod walls for defence

Day 3, Part 2 Storm arrives at Snaefellsjokull National Park

            As we were snapping the our last pics at Arnarstapi, the weather began turning worse and worse. We had read that a good size storm was bearing down on southern Iceland and so we prepared to turn north and hop our goal for the day was out of the storm zone but we had no real way of knowing. We headed back to our suv and began making our way around Snaefellesjokull the large glacier topped volcano that gives the entire area its name.Through rain and wind and lava field we drove not able to really see the mountains due to the cloud cover and persistant fogs gripping their sides.
           We made our first stop after Arnarstapi at the monument of Guðríður Þorbjarnardóttir who gave birth in Vinland to Snorri Þorfinnsson who was the first known person of European descent to be born in North America. The monument is rather small but its interesting place with views of the coastal plain and the ocean was well. By now it was pourning so alot of the photos were full of water spots as is a common theme today.

Our next stop was an area known as the Londrangar basaslt cliffs which was very near the vistor center for the national park. Theses massive formations are remnants of a large crater that has since collapsed on itself. On a side note this is where first saw something that really irritates me, people being absolutely stupid and going into places they should not have to get the perfect picture or selfie. There are signs and in most places borders to protect you and the local plant life that in some areas are incredibly delicate. But time and time again we saw people acting stupid.

looks like a ship and the other column looks like there is a face, at least to me.

From Londrangar we made our way around the pennisula and back to Grundarfjordur near where we took our picks of Kirkjufell the day before. The weather was getting worse by the minute and unfortunately we had could not see many things. The upside is that we will have to return to this peninsula and hope for clear weather or at least less extreme.

                 

Still having issues

My laptop in not faring well here, it pains me to say that I won't be able to get caught up until we are back in the states..

A little break in the action

We are having persistent issues connecting anything to the internet for long periods of time in Akureyri, I'll try to get caught up tomorrow in Reykjavik....

Day 3 part 1- Waking up in Arnarstapi or the Calm Before the Storm

Stapafell

Morning arrived with the call of seabirds and the gentle crashing of waves on the cliffs not far away.
We slept well in our little cottage in the shadow of Stapafell, an extinct volcano that gain notoriety for being on the cover of Jules Verne's book Journey to the Center of the Earth. After a quick but satisfying breakfast, we were ready to head out for the day. (Tip for traveling here, food is super expensive so try to find a free meal when booking places to stay.) Our planned drive was about 379 km for the day but with the ways things go with our gps and it's Icelandic routing i would hate to think how far we actually drove.

Our small but very comfortable cottage

After breakfast we took some time to enjoy the somewhat pleasant weather by Iceland standards and by our standards as Northwesterner's too, by walking a short distance to the statue of  Bardur Snaefellsnes the quarter troll, quarter giant, half human protector of the entire peninsula we were on. They liked him so much, they went ahead and even named it after him, Hence the name Snaefellsnes Peninsula. Lets go back to Bardur's lineage for a second, he sounds like a Dungeons and Dragons character gone wrong. According to his saga, his mother was human but his father was half troll, half giant, there you have it. Anyways we looked at this huge statue of him and strolled down to the cliffs to see waves pounding against the cliffs. With the big storm rolling into Southern Iceland and that very storm that we would later being driving through to get north and out of it, was kicking up so good waves and views were great. A little further down was the rock arch known as Gatklettur which according to my attempts to find a translation means could rocking, There are no stories that i could find that even talk about it, maybe it was boring to the Norse when they settled here, who knows?

Bardur protector of the Snaefellsnes Peninsula

Inside that cave lives the Shrieking Eels

And finally the arches: