Iceland Day 6 – Westfjords, Ísafjörður Day 1

Sunday August 31, Tálknafjörður to Ísafjörður

The early morning at the secluded cabin on idyllic Tálknafjörður fjord was wonderfully peaceful, that peace amplified by the Chaffinches and Redwings flitting in and out of the trees all around. Ann had a rough night so I slept poorly as a result and getting started was difficult. Almost immediately on arriving at this cabin, we wished we could spend another night here. The prospect of leaving this cabin behind did not help motivate me to get going.

And yet leave we must, reluctantly or not. I made sandwiches for our lunch, toast for Ann's breakfast, and took our luggage out to the car where I turned it on to see if the 4WD warning from yesterday had disappeared. It had and was likely an overheating issue. The brutal Westfjords roads yesterday worked the transmission out hard for certain.

Our destination was the principal city in the Westfjords, Ísafjörður, where we would spend two nights. Today's principal sight was to be the massive Dyjandi waterfall, the most spectacular in the Westfjords, the jewel of the Westfjords. I had also noted a couple of other things to see along the way, if we felt so inclined. First up was a brief stop at Fossfjörður Waterfall, a charming little sheet of water falling into a tranquil pool before it makes its way into Fossfjörður, the westernmost of the Suðurfirðir, the Southern Fjords.

Fossfjörður Waterfall

A bit about Icelandic place names. Towns often take on the same name as the fjord on which they are built, such as Tálknafjörður. Fossfjörður is no different and applies to both the little area at the head of the fjord as well as the fjord itself. You may have noted that foss means waterfall so Fossfjörður means Waterfall Fjord and so the waterfall itself would be somewhat redundantly Fossfjörðurfoss. To add to the confusion, the farm at this location is called Foss. Make of it what you will, but I imagine a new Abbott and Costello routine called "Who's on Foss?"

Just a few meters from the waterfall in Fossfjörður, we stumbled on tremendously fun building that became one of the highlights of our trip. Along the bank of the Fossfjörður, an offshoot of the vast Arnarfjörður, sits the A-house, a tiny, nearly derelict abandoned barn or house standing proudly alone in a vast landscape. This find was so totally unexpected that we stopped to take photos and found inside bags of wool, a saddle, and arty seating areas. A sign on the door invited us inside, "Welcome! Please close the door when you leave, so the sheep don't go inside and poop on the floor."

The A-House on Fossfjörður

"Welcome! Please close the door when you leave, so the sheep don't go inside and poop on the floor."

Outside the A-House, a Set of Tiny Houses

Called an Áfhól or Elf Hall, These Tiny Houses are Homes for the Huldufólk, the Elves

An essential part of a visit to the Westfjords is winding in and out of the non-stop fjords and stopping to take in the austere beauty that stretches to the horizon. The clouds moving in and about make the scenes moody at times and at others, allow sunshine to light up far away hillsides.

The only blemish to my eye were the salmon pens, especially in the Dýrafjörður near Þingeyri. Those farmed salmon escape their pens. What happens to wild breeding stocks when this happens? Many Icelanders have similar concerns as well as some dismay that many of the fish farming operations are controlled by Norwegians exploiting the natural bounty of Iceland.

Geirþjófsfjörður

At a Photo Stop, Dwarf Birch, Fjalldrapi, Betula nana

Fall Color on Mountain Sorrel, Ólafssúra, Oxyria dygina

As we neared the great Dynjandi, we stopped briefly at Kálfeyrarfoss, reputedly a hidden gem waterfall, but we found it hard to get perspective standing atop the fall and looking down. Just before the turn off into Dynjandi, the road was torn apart with heavy equipment moving every which way, some serious highway construction underway along the ridgeline off which the Dynjandisá River tumbled on its way down to creating the set of six waterfalls in the Dynjandi complex.

Dynjandisá River Above the Dynjandi Complex

From the parking area at the bottom of the hill next to the Arnarfjörður into which the river tumbles, a series of paved walkways and trails climbs the hillside past five smaller falls up to the massive cascade called Dynjandi or Fjallfoss. Dynjandi itself is without a doubt the prettiest bridal veil fall I have ever seen and it is definitely worth a stop here.

All Six Waterfalls

Lowest: Bæjarfoss

Hundafoss: Small But Pretty

Hrísvaðsfoss

Göngumannafoss

Strompgljúfrafoss and Dynjandi

Strompgljúfrafoss

Hæstahjallafoss Below Dynjandi

Strompgljúfrafoss and Hæstahjallafoss

Dynjandi, the Six-Tiered 100-Meter Bridal Veil Fall

Perspective: Look for Ann in the
Raspberry Jacket on Boulder Bottom Right

Dynjandi is a Deceptive Climb: Parking Lot Below

Autumn Hawkbit, Skarifífill, Scorzoneroides autumnalis

Blooming Mountain Sorrel, Ólafssúra, Oxyria dygina

More Fall Color: Arctic Willow, Grávíðir, Salix arctica

Before continuing our trip north to Ísafjörður, we sat in the parking lot eating sandwiches as tour bus after tour bus arrived, likely from a cruise ship docked in Ísafjörður. Forethought to make sandwiches is necessary in many places in Iceland but especially in the Westfjords where there are no stores and no restaurants for long stretches of road.

Westfjords: Sandwich It or Starve

On our way into Ísafjörður, just before the long bridge crossing of the Önundarfjörður, we stopped to see the Holtskirkja. Someone told me it was a great photo, but I could not find the perspective I wanted though you can get a feel for the simplicity of the red-roofed white church against the visual drama of the mountains.

Holtskirkja

Across the fjord bridge, we completed an Icelandic right of passage, our first one-lane tunnel experience. I was not expecting such a tunnel outside of North Iceland and it is extremely fortunate that I studied one-lane tunnel procedure before the trip. Imagine the problems if I entered the tunnel unawares.

Coming north on 60, 64 branches west to Flateyri, after which 60 enters a long tunnel, the first half of which is one-lane. Fortunately, we had the right of way so southbound traffic had to yield to us by turning into regularly spaced pullouts. Halfway through, route 65 branches west to Suðureyri. My mind was blown that one tunnel would branch off from another! This was good practice for Tröllaskagi which has several such tunnels.

I am kicking myself for not stopping in the photogenic little village of Flateyri on the way into town. All I can say is that we heard a beer calling our name. Needing to kill an hour before checking in to our apartment, we drove to the only brewery in the Westfjords, Dokkan Brugghús. We had their IPA and Mango IPA which were decent enough and the best beers so far in Iceland, though the mango was a bit over the top. The brewery is situated directly beside the cruise ship dock and a boatload of Germans was in town, many of them in the brewpub. We met a nice couple from Köln and chatted a while before rolling out.

Wanting to score some food for dinner, we drove to the Bónus which conveniently had Orkan gas pumps in the parking lot. We were able to kill both chore tasks in one stop. The was the biggest Bónus we have been in yet and bigger definitely means better selection. We got pasta, passata, capers, fresh basil, and ground beef for dinner.

From the store and gas station, it was a pluperfect clusterfuck trying to navigate to our room thanks to our GPS which consistently had us turn one street too early. Street signs seem to be non-existent to verify that we were on the correct street. While I examined the map in detail, Ann barged into wrong house on wrong street looking for our apartment.

By the time she returned, I had figured out what we needed to do to get to the correct place, complicated a bit by the maze of one-way streets. Checking in was a trying experience as the instructions were the weakest of all of the places we stayed in the course of three weeks. To top it off, our mobile Wi-Fi disconnected in the middle of trying to read the instructions. I was a bit frustrated; Annie was about nail spitting mad.

Once we gained entry, we found our apartment was more of a hostel experience, but with a spacious and nicely equipped kitchen. The kitchen aside, this was not our idea of a great abode for a two-night stay. After a bit of a struggle, I got the Wi-Fi rebooted and connected to it. Meanwhile, Ann was struggling to find an electric outlet to recharge her electronics; most electric outlets in this old house are old-school and not compatible with our modern European adapters. Annie sent a pointed note the owner.

I am not sure what she said, but it culminated in an appearance from the owner while Ann was struggling with the AV system to watch a DVD. Said system requires a PhD in gadgetry to figure out. With apologies to Alice and Arlo, if it takes twenty-seven eight-by-ten color glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was to be used for, the system is probably unworkable, which the owner, now at hand kindly demonstrated by fiddling with it to no avail. Ultimately she refunded us a considerable amount of money in cash, enough to pay for our dinner the next evening.

With Apologies to Arlo

As the sky was darkening, I set about making dinner from the ingredients that we scrounged at the grocery. We were fortunate to find a bag of Garofalo tagliatelle from which I made a really first-rate sugo from butter, ground beef, crushed pepper flakes, capers, passata, and lots of fresh basil. Regardless of the circumstances, this was one of the finer sauces I have ever made.

Dinner Cooking Away

Tagliatelle con Sugo

After tidying up a bit, we climbed the rickety stairs in our long-in-the-tooth apartment to the bedroom. Each time I walked by the bathroom, I got a huge and obnoxious whiff of mildew. We really did not want to spend a second night there, but really, we had to make the best of it. We hoped that the rain showers that had set in earlier in the evening would abate by morning so that we could explore this cute town.

Iceland Day 5 – Westfjords, Tálknafjörður

Saturday August 30, Grundarfjörður to Tálknafjörður

The past two days in Snæfellsnes have been delightful, but it is full of tourists, and one of our goals on this trip to Iceland was to experience some less visited areas including the Westfjords, that portion of far northwest Iceland that is largely separated from the mainland. The ring road does not go through the Westfjords, so many people skip it.

The wild and fairly desolate Westfjords turned out to be our favorite part of Iceland and if we were to go back, we would stay and explore this part of the country for much longer and in much more depth than we did in our three nights on this trip. There is so much of the Westfjords to see, including Hornstrandir Nature Reserve and the Strandir Coast.

Látrabjarg, the Westernmost Point in Iceland and Europe

I slept poorly last night. I bitched about our crappy bed in Grundarfjörður in a previous post, but I have yet to get into the duvets on every bed in Iceland. I lay some of the blame for a bad night's sleep squarely on a duvet that was too short for my large frame. Icelanders are fans of individual duvets on their beds, which is all good and well, but when I have to turn the duvet on the diagonal just to get a little coverage, well, it is a problem. Last night's duvet was among the shortest on the entire trip and I never could get comfortable under it. I never did sleep under one that I found sufficiently of size.

I really wanted good sleep because today was the first day that we were on a schedule, having to catch the ferry in nearby Stykkishólmur across the wide Breiðafjörður to Brjánslækur in the Westfjords. Our ferry was to depart at 1100 and we had instructions to arrive by 1030. The ferry was waiting for us when we arrived, but did not start boarding until about 1040 for the 2.5-hour ferry ride that made a single stop in the middle of the Breiðafjörður at Flatey. Driving would have taken about 3 hours, so with waiting time to load and unload, the time would have been a wash. But I wanted a break from driving and to be honest, I love taking ferries.

Stykkishólmur Harbor

RO-RO Ferry Baldur Waiting for Us

Hiding in the Car Against the Brisk Wind

Loading Cargo Bound for Flatey

Quickly after loading onto the ferry, (I drove; passengers must walk on) Ann and I went upstairs to a small seating area looking out the stern where the crew was busy loading small cargo boxes with an onboard crane. While we were docked at the ferry terminal, it was overcast, windy, and chilly, but once we pulled out of the harbor, the day turned sunny and flat seas made our crossing of the Breiðafjörður delightful.

Icelandic Flag on Stern of Ferry Baldur

A Black-backed Gull Watching Us Depart
Greater or Lesser, I Could not Say

Houses in Stykkishólmur

Súgandiseyjarviti, Súgandisey Lighthouse

Elliðaeyjarviti, Elliðaey Lighthouse

About two-thirds of the way across the fjord, the ferry makes a brief stop, tying up alongside the pier at Flatey ("Flat Island") to drop the cargo boxes they loaded earlier and a few passengers. Some passengers may have come on board, but if they did, I missed it. Flatey's population is principally seasonal; most of the houses are summer houses.

Klofningsviti Sitting on Klofningur Near Flatey

There are Few Buildings on Flatey

Cliffs on Flatey as We Were Leaving

As the photos above show, we lost the warm sunshine that accompanied most of our crossing. And the temperature dropped as well. After Flatey, although it looked like rain, it only sprinkled a bit here and there. The afternoon sky was mostly gray with spots of weak sunshine and the wind brought markedly cooler temperatures.

Already in our vehicle below deck when we docked, I had not yet seen Brjánslækur. When I imagined it, I imagined a small fishing village. It is not. It is a single ferry dock in the middle of nowhere with a dirt road leading up to the paved main road. Welcome to the desolate Westfjords!

Just as soon as the drawbridge hits the ferry dock, the crew starts waving off cars. Unloading goes quickly. As I headed up the ramp, our Duster staggered and lugged its way along and would not get up to speed until out to the main road where it lurched forward violently. The car's odd behavior did not thoroughly register as I was concentrating on moving along in the line of cars just off the ferry, about half of which were headed west in the same direction as we were.

This Handsome Sheep Tried to Share the Road with Us

Two Eurasian Oystercatchers
We Saw a Flock of Perhaps 200 in Flight, a Mass of Black and White

We had two stops on our afternoon itinerary, both at the westernmost point of Iceland. On our way to Látrabjarg, home to the largest seabird colony in Iceland and one of the largest in Europe, we wanted to stop at a red sand beach named, oddly enough, Rauðisandur or Red Sand Beach.

Little did we know as we turned south of the paved road in the direction of the beach that this drive would be our welcome to the Westfjords where you want a 4x4 and some skill in driving it. The dirt road starts innocently enough to lure unsuspecting idiots down to the beach, but quickly becomes narrow, steep, and without any shoulders or guardrails, unforgiving. The experience was a long white knuckle affair and I was happy to have climbed down out of the mountains to the water level.

I still had to drive it in the reverse direction and going up always seems easier than going down. Going down the tight and steep hairpin turns was fairly easy; climbing back up them was a slick first-gear four-wheel-drive affair where momentum was key. Of this road, our host in Ísafjördur later said, “That road is scary!” Yep, what she said.

Bottomed out at the water level, we drove in search of the fabled red sand with visions of brilliant copper Arizona, Nevada, and Utah sand in our head. Ending up in a parking area, we found no red sand to speak of, just a sad muddy brown beach, a bust. A carload of Aussies arrived after we did and in comparing notes, we all decided that we got hornswoggled into a whole lot of driving for not much of anything. The sad beach was so unforgettable that I took no photos, though I did get a shot of the local denizens and the local church.

Beachside Inhabitants

The Local Church, Saurbæjarkirkja

Noisy Convention of Ravens Far More Interesting Than the Beach

Mare's-tail, Lófótur, Hippuris vulgaris, in a Ditch
A New Plant for Me, But it Grows in Oregon

After grinding back up through the dirt track to the paved road, we aimed for Látrabjarg Cliffs, home to the largest seabird nesting area in Iceland. Once we drove beyond the Patreksfjörður airport on a really beat dirt road, the GPS claimed that the remaining 12 miles would take 90 minutes. As the kids say, the math was not mathing. Pot committed, we pushed on through terrible road conditions alongside Patreksfjörður, the fjord, not the town of the same name.

Some sections were scary-ass singletrack with no shoulders and hundreds of feet of drop off. At one point, we crossed a dilapidated bridge as a bulldozer and crew seemed to be pushing a new dirt track off to one side after having laid a culvert in the creek. Road conditions were rough but the suspension in the Duster was up to the task. Shit road and all, the drive only took about 20 minutes, not the 90 that the GPS indicated.

The impetus for the visit to Látrabjarg was to see the masses of seabirds, hopefully including puffins, despite it being late in the season for them. Ultimately, the birds were a bust, but the scenery was spectacular and seeing the westernmost point in Europe was pretty neat. The puffins have returned to sea for the winter as I anticipated.

Lighthouse at Látrabjarg

Cliffs Are Impressive, Up to 440m/1450ft

Next Stop, Greenland

Hilltops Covered in Guano-Loving Plants

There were a few birds in residence on the ciffs, primarily Northern Fulmars, a bird we saw all over the country. Iceland hosts about 25 percent of the world's population of these birds who prefer to nest on cliffs, sitting there clucking like chickens. Ungainly on the ground, fulmars are wizards in the air and easy to tell from gulls when on the wing. Fulmars appear bull-necked, short-tailed, and fly with stiff wingbeats, different in all aspects from the gulls that we saw, Black-backed, Herring, Icelandic, and Black-headed.

Northern Fulmars

Black-legged Kittiwakes

Many Hundreds of Feet Down, Common Eiders

I was not expecting to see many wildflowers in Iceland in September, but there were a surprising number in the grass along the cliffs.

 Sea Campion, Holurt, Silene uniflora

Common Scurvygrass, Skarfakál, Cochlearia officinalis

Grass of Parnassus, Mýrasóley, Parnassia palustris

Sea Thrift, Geldingahnappur, Armeria maritima

Sea Thrift Close-up

Autumn Hawkbit, Skarifífill, Scorzoneroides autumnalis

Walking Among the Hawkbits

Tired now after a long drive and walking about the cliffs, we set out for our cabin for the night in Tálknafjörður. We could not find a place to stay in the larger Patreksfjörður, but we did find what looked to be a nice place one fjord over in Tálknafjörður. Reversing course, as we were negotiating the rough, steep dirt road back from Látrabarg, the check engine light came on with a message on the display “Check 4WD.” Awesome! I figured the front transaxle was running hot and switched it to full-time 2WD for the duration of the drive. The next morning, the error cleared, no doubt an overheating issue or a sensor issue.

Remember the dilapidated bridge that we inched across carefully on the drive out? It was blocked off with big signs and the road detoured onto the new dirt that we saw the bulldozer pushing earlier. My tracks may have been the first in the mud as we passed the old bridge now hanging from a crane and being loaded onto a flatbed truck. We would see crews out getting the job done seven days a week and achieving things quickly without flaggers or even minimal signage. I guess Icelanders are used to it and tourists need to learn to cope or stay off the more interesting roads.

Tálknafjörður proved to be a tiny out-of-the-way fish processing town in a gorgeous location hard on the fjord of the same name. Once past the few buildings in town, we followed the host's direction to the cabin: “Drive to the church on the hill, once you are there, drive a little longer on the gravel road with a slight left turn, approximately 150 meters, then you will find the cabin.” Interesting but largely effective for a place with no GPS entry. We bore a little too left ending up at a group of cabins which did not appear to be ours, but retracing our steps a bit, we arrived quickly at our cute tiny house cabin with a view of the fjord, one of our most favorite places of the entire trip and a blessing after our previous apartment.

Our Delightful Secluded Cabin in Tálknafjörður

View of Tálknafjörður, the Fjord Surrounded by Planted Trees from Home Sitka Spruce and Lodgepole Pine

Cotton Grass, Klófífa, Eriophorum angustifolium
Found Everywhere in Wet Locations

Planted Wildflowers Outside the Cabin

Settling in in the late evening, I found a panini maker in the cabinet and made us a couple of cheese and salami panini to accompany our wine. Because it was a chilly evening, I opened a bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape that proved too fruity and too large for our palates accustomed to lighter Nebbiolos.

After dark, we went to bed already ruing that we could not spend another day here in the beautiful cabin, exploring the secluded town, buying fish at the processing plant which has a self-serve walk-up retail counter, and grilling that fish out on the wide front porch. Where we regretted spending two days in Grundarfjörður, we wished for several more days in lovely Tálknafjörður. Live and learn.