Day 8: Northern Iceland to Westfjords

Today we drove from Lauger (North Eastern Iceand) to Akureyri (the Northern capital city) and then to our hotel in Western Iceland (just south of the Westfjords). Once we checked out of Öndólfsstaðir farm B&B we went to Goðafoss falls, as they are on the way Akureyri. Goðafoss falls is name means waterfall of the gods. I was super excited to see it. I didn’t do much reading up on it so I had high expectations. It was a measly 12m tall. That was a bit of a let down but they do let you get really close to them since they are not as dangerous as the others. Overall an interesting sight, they are like a mini Niagara Falls so don’t get to excited.

From Goðafoss we went to Akureyri, which is the second largest city in Iceland. After seeing numerous small towns and settlements I was interested to see the size of Akureyri. I was not disappointed, Akureyri holds a whopping 18,200 people. That’s under 1% of Toronto’s population. In fact its just over 10% of Guelph’s population. Inside are numerous things to do and sights to see. Something to note if you do plan to come to Iceland is that on Sunday’s everything is closed. Very few shops and cafes are open. So since it was a Sunday we took a look at the church. It’s a very modern looking church and I can see why people like taking pictures of it. The stairs accent the church well making it very easy to create a focal point. We also looked at the Botanical Gardens (in the winter). It is situated right behind the junior college so if you think you missed it you probably didn’t. Inside are a wide variety of dead plants from light brown to shriveled up, and surprisingly a fair amount of live plants too. They plant some alpine species allowing for green and color to splatter the white and brown gardens. It’s a pretty place and I imagine in the summer it must be beautiful. There is a cafe and green house located in the middle of the garden. So if flowers and plants aren’t your thing grab a cup of Joe and people watch. Overall Akureyri is a good stop in the winter. Plenty to see year round and for a decently sized town with a harbor there is always something to do.

The drive from Akureyri to Western Iceland was long, and we made it even longer by visiting the north coast! The northern coast contains small towns that have skiing and whale watching in the winter. We didn’t have time to stop and go on a tour but just driving through was fantastic. The small towns hold at most 500 people each and they are all well connected with the most tunnels in Iceland. I think we drove through all of them when we explored the north. Almost all were double lane allowing for traffic to flow in both directions. One tunnel was quite scary, as it was a single lane and you had to shift over to one of the breaks if there was on coming traffic. Normally not too bad but when there were corners in the tunnel it was quite frightful. The Fjords out there have a very tranquil and calm feel for having a town around. The town’s are usually brightly coloured giving off wonderful contrast with the mountainous region that they are in. The north seems like a good place to stay if you like fish, skiing and don’t mind waiting in tunnels.

So after 5 hours of driving we eventually arrived at Hotel Ljósaland and during that drive we saw another fantastic transformation of the land. We went from the mountainous regions of Northern and Eastern Iceland to hilly and farm able land. The mountains stopped appearing and were slowly replaced by hills covered in lush grass. It was amazing to see the population increase as we came across the better land and weather. Even though we were driving through a rain/snow storm (snowed pretty heavy in the mountains and the fog was quite thick during the ups and downs of the mountains) it was quite evident that the temperature was changing. It was almost like we were being thrown into spring as the farmers had gone from white blankets covering their land and then in the next 100 km having the land already tilled for seeds. Western Iceland from what I’ve seen has some of the more fertile land readily available.

So Yve and I decided after dinner to take a soak in a local hot spring. So we climbed into our car and drove into one of the nearby mountain passes. The hot spring was located just outside the mountains on the other-side. After a short while we managed to bumble around in the dark and find it. It was nice and warm, while the air was frigid. The mountain pass caused the temperature to drop from a fair 5°C to -5°C. It wasn’t that bad but the ground was freezing our feet while we had to get in and out of our shoes. The hot spring was about a 5 minute walk up the mountain from where we parked so shoes were necessary.

Tonight was the night. I was going to shoot astro. I triple checked the weather forecast and it was perfect. Western Iceland was being nice to me and I didn’t miss the opportunity. All the pictures here are still in their original format I haven’t had the chance to do any post work on them. Finally the Northern lights and the stars.