Iceland 5: Grundarfjordur to Akureyri

The storm had blown itself out overnight, and it was calm but grey when we woke up.  Breakfast was the same as yesterday, but set us up well for the mammoth drive to Akureyri (375km).  Before setting off, however, we went along the quay in Grundarfjordur one last time to look at the birds.  There weren't too many to see, but we did spot someone walking a (fluffy) dog in a highly efficient Icelandic manner!

In the morning we stopped at a few places to take pictures while the weather was reasonable, but it soon started to cloud over.  This wasn't really an issue since the scenery became gradually less dramatic as we headed away from the Snaefellsnes peninsula.  

Much of the journey was made up of relatively flat lava fields which were either bare pumice or, as in the case below, covered in a blanket of thick moss.

The "dirt track" below is actually a main road.  In fact, almost half the roads we drove on in Iceland were unmetalled.  Sadly, not having hired a 4x4 vehicle, we weren't allowed on the truly adventurous "F" roads...

North West Iceland is much more open than other parts, being flatter and more agricultural.  Nothing like as spectacular as the previous couple of days, so we just drove until about 12:00 when we stopped to look in a wool shop and buy some food for lunch.  A bit of a one horse town (if that) but we also managed to negotiate the self-service automatic filling station and put some diesel in the car.

Question: when is milk not milk?  Answer: when it's "ab" milk, which actually turned out to be a form of natural yogurt instead.  Very good, as it happens, but not the easiest of things to drink with one's lunch...

There was lots more driving in the afternoon, sometimes on dirt roads, sometimes on metalled roads, and we eventually hit "Route 1" which is the main road from Reykjavik to Akureyri.  This was quite busy compared to others we had been on, so we pulled off to have lunch by a quiet church.  We got out of the car in bright sunshine, but since it was windy we moved behind the church for a bit of shelter.  Guess what?  Within two minutes the heavens opened, so we had to make a run for the car.

Then back on the road again, heading for a textile museum which Harriet wanted to visit.  This particular location was probably no more than a half-horse town, famous only for housing Iceland's oldest ever inhabitant. The guidebook reckoned that she got so old because nothing ever happened there, with the inevitable conclusion that she eventually died of boredom.

During the journey we met a rather unexpected hold-up: several people herding lots of horses from one field to another along the road.  They are such beautiful animals: about the size of a pony (although the Icelanders insist that they're definitely "horses"), and all possessing that characteristic comb-over.

The Textile Museum was in a modern building; and - thankfully - it proved rather more interesting than the rest of the town.  It was also a challenge photographically, as the majority of the exhibits were either white or black.  Interestingly, black appears to be the national dress colour for Iceland; strange in a land where, for half the year, they hardly see the sun.

I was rather taken with some of the traditional blankets, presumably made from undyed wool.

We then had another couple of hours driving ahead of us, so we set off into the rapidly deteriorating weather.  The scenery got more spectacular, with snow clearly visible at quite low levels.  We went through several heavy rain storms, as well as up hill and down dale on at least three occasions, into a steep gorge where we stopped to take some pictures (in the dry).  Needless to say, within five minutes of arriving, the heavens opened again and we had to make yet another dash for the car.

The first two pictures show the kind of sheep from whose wool the blankets had been made.  Truly hardy souls to survive in the Icelandic climate.

Finally, a view which was now becoming rather familiar during our travels...

Eventually we arrived in Akureyri, so look out for the next thrilling installment as we went for a wander around Iceland's second city.

Iceland 4: Snaefellsnes

Hotel Framnes had an excellent breakfast, as expected.  Muesli, toast, pickled herring, cheese, marmalade/jam and lots of interesting bread.  Coffee and (decent) juice on tap too, so no comparison with the disappointment of Reykjavik.

The day was grey and the forecast was for rain later, so we set off to drive in an anti-clockwise direction around the Snaefellsnes peninsula.  An initial wrong turn took us to a dead end above the town, but this had a good view of the church and the distant hills.

This panorama is somewhat wider than the previous one, so there's no way that a simple blog post can do it justice.  Hopefully the panning video will give a better sense of what it was like to be there.

By this time the weather was starting to set in, but there was still the occasional burst of sunshine through the gathering clouds.

Eventually we found the correct road and headed west, stopping at various places including Olafsvik (another Fish Processing town).  While watching birds (mainly eider ducks) we saw a "long" animal running across the beach.  Initially we thought it might be an otter, but when it reappeared it was clear that the gait was wrong.  The beast was brown, so we eventually assumed it was a weasel, stoat or pine marten; later we discovered it was a mink.  These were originally farmed for their fur but are now a complete nuisance in the area, apparently, stealing eggs from ground-nesting birds.  Please excuse the rather poor picture of it, but the beastie was a long way away, and there wasn't much light around.

We then headed out on a gravel road towards a lighthouse on the NW corner of the peninsula, and noticed that there was a large amount of "weather" on its way over the volcano.  Visibility was low, and the volcano itself was completely covered in low cloud for the entire day.  There was intermittent heavy rain, and we had to shelter in the car for a while.  During one of the clear spells we went for a walk along the cliffs to look at the nesting birds: guillemots, fulmars, kittiwakes - along with a lone puffin.  We then went on to another viewpoint, which amazingly had yellow (rather than black) sand on its beach.  More weather arrived at this point, so we got back into the car and drove around to the Snaefellsjokull National Park Visitors' Centre at Hellnar.  More importantly there was a cafe at the Centre, so we decided to shelter from the weather while also having a bite to eat.

The Warden at the Visitors' Centre recommended a "scenic" road back to the hotel, straight over the the volcano itself on a gravel road.  We tried stopping a couple of times on the way back, but the rain was so heavy and the wind so strong that there was little point in getting out of the car.  We took the recommended road, which was spectacular even though for much of the journey we were shrouded in cloud.

The weather was so bad that we headed back to the hotel in order to read a book and batten down the hatches.  The forecast was - thankfully - much better for the following day.