The Westfjords are Iceland’s last wild refuge. For lack of time most tourists leave this part of Iceland out of their round trip. We grew hopeful that we would discover untouched spots here and, above all, the odd secret hot pot.
Day 8 – whale watching from the hot pot
Oh, that night was cold. When we woke, our flysheet was covered in a thin layer of ice. A clear case of starry skies – such a shame that of all nights the aurora activity was at zero…
In the shower came the next shock: I was wet, covered in soap, and when I went to rinse off there was no water left! Not no water at all, but only a few meagre drops of scalding hot thermal water. Somebody had cut off the cold water supply without asking whether anybody happened to be in the shower. Then again, this campsite had a 5-star rating and was praised by many as the best of their whole Iceland trip. The bar cannot have been set particularly high…
Never mind, because the starry night was followed by a cloudless morning. Have I mentioned that Iceland in sunshine is simply stunning?
That day we headed into the Westfjords. Most visitors to Iceland skip this corner. It really is not a matter of a quick detour either: you drive along the coast road right around every single fjord and clock up almost as many kilometres as on the entire ring road. And when you look at the relative sizes, that is genuinely astonishing!
On the way we paid a visit to the turf church Víðimýrarkirkja and the Kolugljúfur canyon.
A waterfall (modest by Icelandic standards) plunges into the Kolugljúfur canyon – and anybody who has been paying attention in the last posts knows that this is where my heart started beating faster. Because with a blue sky at a waterfall, the chances of a rainbow are very good. Looking at the waterfall that morning, though, you were staring into the sun. Yes, that was obviously never going to work! So I scrambled around behind the waterfall and – hallelujah – there was a rainbow again at last! Oh, it really is too lovely!
Now we really were heading into the unknown terrain of the Westfjords. Those roads running right along the sea – simply a dream.
We were driving along when I suddenly saw a fountain of water spray up out of the sea. What was that? Jan braked, into reverse, eyes fixed on the water. There it was again! There really was a minke whale swimming close to the shore! How wonderful!!! What a stroke of luck!
I jumped out of the car to get even closer to the shore. It was not enough for a truly convincing photo – I do want to see a spectacle like that with my own eyes as well, and I have realised that if I simply point my camera at it, I badly misjudge what is actually in the frame.
Even though on a whale watching tour you obviously see the whales far better at close range, there is something almost magical about discovering an animal like that yourself. It is something special, wild, real. And the sighting made me indescribably happy.
We drove to the other side of the fjord to the hot pot in Drangsnes. To the three hot pots, to be precise, which line up along the shore at different water temperatures. Wonderful! We were not entirely alone here, but it was not really busy either. And the people who had been there before us really had watched a whale from the pool. That good fortune was not granted to us any more – but we can hardly complain!
After a long hot bath, during which we very nearly got sunburnt that day, we carried on along the many fjords – a full 230 km, because as I said: out here you really do take in every single fjord. Happily, in Iceland the journey is the destination, because on even the most deserted road there is something to discover. Even if it is only the lonely road itself.
That afternoon a few turf houses wandered in front of our lens: an abandoned nameless little house; one used for drying fish; and one that serves as a museum.
After freezing in our sleeping bags in sub-zero temperatures the previous night, we spontaneously booked ourselves into a guesthouse in Ísafjörður – with 2,500 inhabitants the capital of the Westfjords. Even though it did not look at all like it would be another cold night. But sometimes you just need a good reason to treat yourself to a bit of comfort.
We also wanted to give this night another chance to bless us with northern lights. After the washout the previous evening, when the aurora activity suddenly dropped from 7 to 0, our faith in the forecast had sunk quite a bit. But I did not want to give my conscience any grounds to accuse me of not having tried.
So at nightfall we drove out again. Icelanders generally seem to enjoy demonstrating that they generate their entire energy supply from renewables. Even the smallest village is brightly lit at night. Ísafjörður is no exception. On the contrary: the entire stretch of coast between Ísafjörður and the next village, Bolungarvìk, is lined with street lamps! 17 km.
In search of darkness we drove those 17 km out and – since we found no unlit corners – straight back again. We tried once more in the other direction and parked the car in a lonely bay. Now it meant waiting to see whether the northern lights would show up at some point. There is good reason why the smarter hotels offer a northern lights wake-up service, so you do not have to spend the whole night awake. It really does become exhausting over time…
The problem was: you could not even see the stars in the sky. Not a single one. At some point we gave up hope that the cloud cover would clear. Another piece of misinformation from the forecasting service…
Day 9 – in search of secret hot pots
The Westfjords rather won me over. Alright, the whole of Iceland won me over. But the Westfjords especially. Out here you get the feeling that Iceland is still somehow undiscovered – that you might even be the first person to set foot on one spot or another. That is an illusion, of course, but a lovely one.
We had really seen enough turf houses by now. But we took in the old Hrafnseyri turf farm on the way to the Dynjandi waterfall.
While driving to the Dynjandi waterfall we spotted this seal in the water. That it was a seal was nothing special in itself, of course, but as we caught sight of it, it was busy devouring a fat, freshly caught fish with relish. That was rather spectacular to watch! Sadly it had just gulped the fish down by the time I reached it with my camera…
The Dynjandi waterfall, incidentally, is just about the only sight in the Westfjords that tour buses head for as well. It really is a particularly beautiful specimen of a waterfall!
Our actual mission for the day, though, was: track down secret hot pots! Because while waterfalls and turf houses eventually lose their appeal, that cannot happen with hot pots! For that we headed properly into the back country. Into the back country of the back country, to be precise.
Right by the country road lies the Reykjafjardalaug hot pot. Like many hot pots, the Reykjafjardalaug is an artificially built basin filled with thermal water from a natural spring. For a hot pot it is fairly large – and thereby cleverly distracts from the two natural hot pot basins lying directly behind it.
We saved ourselves a bath in the Reykjafjardalaug and drove on instead to the Pollurinn hot pot. You really only find this one if you know where it is. If in doubt, not even then. Three small hand-built basins sit raised above the fjord. Oh, I wonder whether a whale ever swims past here?
The lovely thing about this hot pot, as with the one in Drangsnes, is that there is a changing room and shower right next door! What luxury!
On the way to the third and last hot pot of the day we passed the Skápadalur shipwreck.
A textbook hot pot is Hellulaug. It is easy to reach and yet lies sheltered by a rock face below the road with a direct view of the sea. And it is a natural pool rather than an artificially built one. A dream! (Or not.)
Day 10 – it is not always sunshine in Iceland
Having already clocked over 3,000 km on our hire car in the past ten days, Jan was not exactly thrilled about driving around YET another headland. On the map they always look somehow smaller than they turn out to be in reality. But I absolutely wanted to see the Snæfellsnes peninsula, since the picturesque Kirkjufell mountain stands there, with the Kirkjufellfoss waterfall pouring down in front of it. If you google the mountain, you will certainly have a déjà vu, because the scene is the epitome of Icelandic scenic beauty.
Yes, I would love to show you a picture of the mountain here myself, but sadly a storm warning was issued for the Snæfellsnes peninsula that day. Not that it stopped us driving there anyway. But our only memento of the Snæfellsnes visit was a car decorated in dirt all over…
As we left the peninsula the weather calmed down noticeably and we took a look at the Landbrotalaug hot pot, the Hraunfossar waterfall and the Grábrók volcano.
Day 11 – final stop Reykjavik
Where two days earlier we had let every beautiful view enchant us, on this day we noticed that the 50 sights and 3500 km of the past days were in our bones. Our heads and hearts were full of Icelandic natural force – now all we wanted was to eat soft ice cream and hot dogs.
And that is exactly what we did in Reykjavik.
Sure, Reykjavik is not Paris or Rome – it certainly does have a few corners worth seeing, though. Somehow it felt exactly right, all the same, to let the last day of our trip simply drift by.
This was the right moment to head home. Nothing was left on the to-do list. We have marvelled at magically glowing ice floes. Bathed in lonely, bathtub-warm hot pots with a view of the sea. Watched a geyser erupt. Waterfalls with rainbows springing out of them made us hold our breath. A minke whale decided to bathe in the sea right in front of us, and a seal devoured a freshly caught fish before our eyes.
Wanderlust had turned into homesickness.
