Home

10%

Iceland 2019 (#6)

Part 6: July 25th — 29th

By Watracz Is Traveling

July 9^th, 2022

Day 22: Svöðufoss waterfall, Skarðsvík beach, Svörtuloft lighthouse

July 25th, 2019

Time to ride around the Snæfellsnes peninsula and see the interesting spots hidden here. It’s going to be a typical touristy day: going all-in on the popular tourist attractions, and doing a bare minimum of challenging bike routes.

I leave Grundarfjörður around 2 pm, and head west, towards Ólafsvík. A few kilometers later I turn off the main road and take a gravel road to the parking lot next to the Svöðufoss waterfall.

Svöðufoss waterfall

You have to walk about 350 meters from the parking lot to the waterfall. It comes down from a 10-meter cliff, with its trademark basalt columns around it.

Rif

A former fishing settlement, and one of the most important trade ports in Snæfellsnes. Today, Rif makes its living mostly from tourism, and it has about 550 residents. While in the port, watch out for aggressive birds flying right over your head.

Ingjaldshóll church

This church, built in 1903, is the oldest concrete church in Iceland, maybe even in the world. According to legend, it was here in 1477 that Christopher Columbus learned about Viking raids on lands located further west than Iceland.

Skarðsvík beach

Sand, stones, and volcanic rocks. The beach is really pretty, it’s a shame you can’t take a bike with you.

Öndverðarnesviti lighthouse

An orange lighthouse built in 1973. It’s the westernmost point of Snæfellsnes.

Svörtuloft lighthouse

Svörtuloft, or Black Ceiling, is a nearly-13-meter-high lighthouse built on top of a high cliff. The cliffs are about 4 kilometers long and several bird colonies nest here.

Saxhóll crater

The crater’s walls are about 100 meters high, and in good weather you have a great view to the Snæfellsjökull glacier from the top.

A short break for a sandwich and a bit of tea. The glacier seems to slowly come out of the fog.

Snæfellsjökull

(Icelandic pronunciation: [ˈstnaiːˌfɛlsˌjœːkʏtl̥], snow-fell glacier) is a 700,000-year-old glacier-capped stratovolcano in western Iceland. It is situated on the most western part of the Snæfellsnes peninsula in Iceland. Sometimes it may be seen from the city of Reykjavík over Faxa Bay, at a distance of 120 km.

(Wikipedia)

Djúpalónssandur beach

There’s a path that leads from the parking lot to the beach through a lava field. There used to be a sizable fishing settlement here, but now the place is uninhabited. On the beach, there’s the wreck of the Grimsby fishing vessel that crashed here in 1948.

What happened to the bars in my phone?

Hellnar

Another fishing village long past its heyday. Nothing interesting here apart from the old church and the Valasnös cliff.

Snæfellsjökull glacier

A few minutes past midnight.

Arnarstapi

It gets dark at 1 am, so I take a few quick shots of the pier and the cliffs and I head out.

Búðakirkja

Photographing a cemetery and a black church at half past 1 am does have a certain character.

Around 2:30 am I get back to the Grundafjörður campsite.

Day 23: Route F570, Kirkjufellsfoss waterfall

July 26th, 2019

After breakfast and a shower I go shopping, and then towards route F570 that leads next to the Snæfellsjökull glacier. On the way, I stop in Ólafsvík for a fish soup, coffee, and a créme brûlée (3900 ISK).

Route F570

Route F570 is about 20 kilometers long. It’s not very demanding technically, but for the first part of the route I have to deal with thick fog, so I need to pay special attention to any oncoming traffic, and I can’t really enjoy the views of the glacier.

On the southern side, the weather gets much better. There’s no fog, not a lot of clouds in the sky, but the wind picks up.

I reach a tarmac road, go fill up the bike in Arnarstapi, and then it’s on to the Rauðfeldsgjá gorge, 5 kilometers north.

Rauðfeldsgjá gorge

From afar, the gorge doesn’t seem all that interesting, so I don’t even get off the bike. The strong winds make me give up on riding any further for the day, so I turn back to the campsite.

Kirkjufellsfoss waterfall

After dinner seems like a good time to go to the waterfall again. As usual, there’s a big group of photographers, each one occupying their own spot. Today the sunset is really nice, and you can finally see red and orange in the sky.

Day 24: Glanni waterfall, Viðgelmir cave

July 27th, 2019

After breakfast I pack up my tent and leave Snæfellsnes. I’m going east, towards the Glanni waterfall, some 130 kilometers away.

Glanni waterfall

Coffee at the parking lot by the waterfall, a few photos from the viewpoint, and I’m on my way.

Viðgelmir cave

Viðgelmir cave is a lava cave, or a tunnel made by lava flowing out of a volcano. The cave is located on private land, and the owners run guided tours here (it’s a family business). The entrance ticket is 6500 ISK. There’s nothing much of interest to see inside, we just walk to the end of the tunnel and back. The coolest place is the entrance to the cave, where you can see the sky through a hole in the ceiling.

Route F550 starts near Viðgelmir cave, but the wind is so strong I just turn back. Around 10 pm I reach the Varmaland Campsite. The campsite is by a swimming pool that’s closed by the time I get there, so this time I go to bed without a shower.

Day 25: Route F550, freediving in Silfra

July 28th, 2019

Route F550

Breakfast, a quick shower, and it’s time to go. The weather is much better today, it’s not as windy as the day before. Route F550 is really easy and any vehicle can make it. There are no rivers, big rocks or sand. Heading south, you can see the Langjökull glacier, Iceland’s second largest glacier, to the left, about 10 kilometers away.

The views are tempting, but I don’t stop much. At 2 pm I’m supposed to be at the Þingvellir national park for a freediving lesson. We’ll be diving in Silfra, a crevasse that sits between two continental plates.

Silfra

There’s a crowd of tourists when I arrive, and at least 7 companies that offer diving sessions, and only one of them does freediving. A freediving session with an instructor is expensive: 24900 ISK. There are four people other than myself; only one of them has completed the AIDA 2 course like me, and the others don’t really know what freediving is, so they probably won’t be able to go too deep. On the bus, we put on 7-mm thick wetsuits and pick our fins, gloves, masks and snorkels — and then we go diving.

On the way, the instructor goes through the planned route, and categorically warns us against swimming through caves or under rocks, because it’s very dangerous. Buuuut if no one’s looking, and we feel like it, we can.

Water in Silfra comes from a glacier and it’s barely 1-2 degrees Celsius. As I dip my face in, I feel as if I got shocked by electric current. It’s the cleanest water in Iceland, the underwater visibility is over 100 meters.

As we’re swimming, the instructor takes photos of us, but you then have to pay extra if you want to get them. We spend about 40 minutes in the water, and after we get out, we all have purple hands, lips, and we find it hard to speak. All of us, that is, except the instructor — he isn’t fazed by the cold water. On the bus back, we’re given hot chocolate, which really is chocolate powder and water from a thermos, but it does help you get warm, so I go for two cups.

I set my satnav to the Vogar Campsite on the Reykjanes peninsula. I fuel up near Reykjavík. The campsite has good facilities, and with the Campingcard, it’s 333 ISK for the night. I think I’ll stay here for a few days.

Day 26: Vogar and its surroundings

July 29th, 2019

In the morning, while shopping at a market, I ask the shopkeeper if they have anything for cleaning bike chains, but they don’t. She advises me to visit the nearby garage and shows me how to get there. When I do, it turns out it’s not a garage, but some kind of factory, but they do have what I need. I get a spray for cleaning the chain, a dynamometric wrench, a 22 mm socket, and a few pieces of cloth. Time to tighten the chain and clean it up a bit.

The guys don’t want any money for their help, but I leave them 1000 ISK for coffee. Then I make a quick stop at a carwash in Keflavík and I’m back at the campsite for dinner. It’s still bright out at 8 pm, so I go for a ride to check out the area.

Eldborg volcano

A couple of kilometers beyond the town of Vogar, I find a route that leads through lava fields to the Eldborg volcano. Not far from there, there are the Trölladyngja and Keilir hills, and 10 kilometers south-west, there’s the Fagradalsfjall volcano, which erupted on March 10th, 2021.