Iceland 2011

Friday3June

Barely landed at Keflavik airport, we pick up our rental 4x4 which will allow us to travel the Icelandic coasts for the next 17 days.

The first "big" city we cross is Hafnarfjörður, the third largest city in Iceland with its 26,000 inhabitants... Suffice to say that there aren't many people in the country, but it's difficult for humans to find a place between the volcanoes, glaciers, and the two oceans, Atlantic and Arctic!

The port of Hafnarfjörður

Our 4x4, a Toyota Rav4

Iceland's inseparable companion: the sheep! It's everywhere!

Horses are everywhere too. With sheep, they share the Icelandic countryside. We will hardly encounter any herds of cattle.

Here is the typical landscape that lines the Icelandic roads. I should say THE road because there aren't many and outside the fjords we will drive almost all the time on road n°1!

Lunch stop at this restaurant facing the small lake Meðalfellsvatn

And hop, here we are at the end of the Hvalfjörður fjord for a short hike on the Glymur site. An hour's walk towards Iceland's highest waterfall with its 190 meters.

The weather is getting worse and we prefer to turn back. We get back on the road to reach our first stop, the town of Arnarstapi.

Waterfall lovers, hurry to Iceland! It's like sheep, they're everywhere!  

Here we are in the Snæfellsnes region, a peninsula in western Iceland, in the town of Arnarstapi. For the record, this village is mentioned in Jules Verne's book "Journey to the Center of the Earth"!

"Bárður Snæfellsáss", deity of Mount Snæfell. This human-shaped statue (an inukshuk!) was made in 1985 by sculptor Ragnar Kjartansson and represents the legend of Bárður Snæfellsáss, descendant of giants and men, who became a spirit by disappearing into the Snæfell glacier (by the way, we will check all this tomorrow by going to the flanks of this mountain...).

Gatklettur, that's the name of this arch at the foot of the Arnarstapi cliffs.

Moss Campion (Silene acaulis).
"Creeping perennial plant, belonging to the family Caryophyllaceae and the genus Silene. It grows in mountains, in most European countries and in the western United States; the leaves form moss-like mats from which short-stalked pink flowers emerge." © Wikipedia

Mount Stapafell

The campsite at the foot of Mount Stapafell. It's not crowded...

Saturday4June

The 1st night went well. Well, so to speak, because during these 17 days, darkness will never announce the beginning of the night since the sun sets just below the horizon around midnight or 1 AM before reappearing around 2 or 3 AM... Not enough to completely hide the sun's rays.

The campsite reception

Last little tour on the cliffs

A quick hello to Bárður Snæfellsáss before leaving Arnarstapi to reach Snæfellsjökull mountain located about ten kilometers from here