Andre and Wendy: Falls, Crater, Canyon and Terns

We leave Blönduós camping and not too far until we see some amazing colts. They are close to the road and so much fun to watch. They sure do stick to their mothers side!

After quite a bit of time with the horses we take a terrible bumpy road to Hvítserkur. It is an impressive ballast monolith in the Arctic sea, but I’m not so sure that the bad drive was worth it. Andre made his way down to the Arctic Sea to get closer, surprise I chose to stay and watch him go down a steep cliff, only one fall so not so bad. Some say the shape is a rhinoceros or elephant, I vote for elephant. Local legend has it that the huge rock was in fact neither an elephant nor a rhinoceros but, once again, a troll who lived in Strandir in the western fjords. Hvítserkur really didn't like Christians, and nothing made him more mad than the sound of the bells in the Thingeyrar church. And it is this troll that stands there in the water, a rock petrified by the rising sun's rays, as he threw stones at the Thingeyrar Monastery in a fit of rage. On the ride back to the main road is the first time we have seen a horse not in a fenced in field, the only time we had to stop for horse traffic. Also a funny road as it was about 25 minutes down a crappy dirt road, but if there were 3 houses in a row the dirt road was paved in front of the 3 houses then back to dirt, first time I have ever seen that.

Kolugljúfur Canyon is our next stop. This is a very pretty canyon that you can walk over a bridge to see both sides. One side has many small waterfalls, and the other side has a beautiful canyon. Very few tourists here, we both really likes this stop.

Another crater stop next, another 500 steps to climb to reach the top of Grábrók Crater. Really nice views from the top, perhaps my favourite crater visit. There were also some old sheep sorting pens that were used many years ago when the sheep are rounded up in the fall after grazing all summer.

Glanni Waterfall is supposed to be known for salmon fishing. We never saw the fish ladder we had read about. We did see a pretty hollow, but that was the excitement here. Probably our most disappointing stop we have made. Really a waste of time. They had a little viewing point to see the waterfall and hollow, but by now we are waterfall snobs, this one did not come out anywhere on our list of favourite waterfalls. We parked in a golf course parking lot, not sure if we really needed to pay the $10 parking free that they had signs up for, but again afraid it would catch up to us when we got home if we didn’t pay.

Deildartunguhver Hot Spring is Europe's most powerful hot spring and our next stop. There is also a fern that grows here that does not grow anywhere else in Iceland, well we never found that fern even after looking it up online. There is a spa here that was way out of our price range, so passed on that. Also passed on the tomato stand from the greenhouse that were $7.00 for 5 tomatoes, we have been buying little tomatoes for our salads that are delicious, but we passed on these ones. Another stop today that if we were to do it again we would take a pass on this one.

On to Reykholt the Historic site of Snorri Sturluson. It has the oldest preserved made hot pool construction in Iceland. Snorri Sturluson is a famous medieval historian and poet, lots of information about Norway. Maybe if we were more interested in the history of Norwegian Kings, Norse Mythology and poetry we would have enjoyed this stop more. So now we have 3 stops in a row that didn’t thrill us, oh well the scenery driving to these spots are stunning, so made up for it

Hraunfossar & Barnafoss Waterfalls are 2 waterfalls that are very easy to walk to from the same parking lot. We are also seeing more tourists here than we have for a while. One bus arrived the same time as us, but we figured they would only do one waterfall, and we were right. We walked reverse to what the tours were doing and had the place pretty much to ourselves. Good call Andre. Barnafoss is named due to a tragic tale of young brothers who fell into the waterfall when crossing its lava arch bridge never to return again. Barnafoss means the children’s waterfall. The waterfall was believed to have been cursed by their mother but nature kicked in and an earthquake took the lava arch down. You can still see where to arch came down.

Gerðuberg Cliffs is a fantastic row of perfectly shaped hexagonal basalt columns that run along a cliff on the southern side of the Snӕfellsnes Peninsula. We spoke to someone that had hiked up to the top for a view but told us it wasn’t worth it, the best views were from the bottom, so no climb up here today.

We had planned to stay in Borganes campground for the night, but the campground was absolutely awful, right beside the main road in a a bigger town, so we decided to move on to find a new campsite.

We then drove about 40 minutes to a campground on a farm that sounded absolutely wonderful. The last review we read online was who doesn’t want to camp with baby goats, that had me. We arrived and drove about 2km down their driveway to a closed sign due to private event. Urgh. We asked the campground organizer if we could still say, he told us it was a huge family event that rented the entire campground and it was going to be very noisy with music. He did let 2 guys on bikes stay as the closest campground is back in Borganes, 40 minutes by car, not sure how far by bike. We definitely didn’t want to go back to Borganes so we carried on.

This next campsite, grandmas campsite was definitely the most memorable, and the most we laughed this trip. To get to this campsite you go down a dirt road past the golfcourse, then through the nesting grounds of arctic terns. As you drive by the terns they are diving at your car, we saw a baby on the road, where is it’s mother? After the nesting grounds you park your car in a field. Grandmas cottage is at the top of a little hill by the campgrounds. Behind the campground is a beautiful beach. The issue? The bathroom is on the other side of the nesting grounds from the camper field. Everyone eventually figured out if you want to use the bathroom either drive to it, or you can walk but make sure you hold something over your head as the terns attack whatever is highest. Some carried walking sticks, umbrellas, one guy had a snow scraper, I used the scrubbing brush for dishes. Everyone there had such a good laugh. Andre had seen a picture of Iceland with a man golfing holding a driver over his head with terns all around him, little did we know that we would be camping here! I got pecked in the head 4 times, but I had my touque and hood of my rain jacket up. Andre was pecked because he spent way too much time taking pictures, they also left a very nice surprise on Andres jacket. Grandma came around collecting money a couple of times, she only took cash, and it was very cheap. I think $25.00 Canadian for that night, but the laughs were priceless. Sorry to miss the baby goats, but this may have been an even better night. After dinner we went for a nice walk on the beach. Someone had made an arrow on the beach in the sand so they would know where to head back up to the campground, you couldn’t see anything except dunes and sand on the beach.

Day summary:

8:00 AM leaving Campground

9 Sightseeing spots

6:30PM at Campground

385 KMS of driving

13 KMS of walking

They are all so unique

Hvítserkur from the lookout

Much better from sea level. A bit of a challenge going down from the lookout but there was also a easier trail at the parking lot which we did not know