Day 28 – 6 August 2023 – Reykjavik to Arnarstapi, Iceland

Breakfast at 7 am at our hotel was great, the food was really good, typical Scandinavian, we enjoyed it all, it set us up for the day. We waited until we were picked up at 9.30 am to take us to the rental car company, waited again, then finally got our car in Iceland, a small red Mazda 2. Our bags fit nicely in the boot & we are away, a few wrong turns & I eventually find my way out of Reykjavik & into the countryside.

My goodness Iceland is beautiful, the tourism photos look fabulous, reality is hard to comprehend. The mountains are so high & sheer, the lakes, rivers, streams, waterfalls all exceed expectations. Iceland has lots of farms with sheep, goats & lots of horses with pasture & loads of hay being baled, we come across lots of fat sheep & goats wandering the sides of the roads. We drove the 7 km through the Hvalfjordur Tunnel under the fjord before I realised I had to turn off before I entered the tunnel, so had to turn around, go back through it & turn down the correct road. The roads are good with a 90 km/hr speed limit & we take our time driving along the sides of the Hvalfjord, it is all stunningly beautiful. In the distance we see lots of steam in the air & as we get closer we see it is a small geothermal power station so we drive in to look.

It turns out that there are hot spring baths & a small hotel with restaurant attached. We have a look at the boiling hot water erupting out of the ground with lots of sulphur smelling steam emitted. We wander up & having a great Scandinavian lunch, smoked salmon, smoked goat meat, goat cheese, pickled vegetables, goat fat & cottage cheese, yum. The name of the hot spring is Deildartunguhver & has the highest flow rate of hot springs in Europe pumping out 180 litres per second at 100 degrees centigrade & is also used to heat homes in West Iceland & to generate power.

Our next stop is at Hraunfossar, a series of numerous waterfalls that emerge from under the edge of the lava field & flow into the River Hvita. Just upriver is a natural waterfall on the river called Barnafoss & it is very noisy as the glacier melt water pumps through the narrow gorge. We continue on driving through a very large old lava field (800 A.D.) with the backdrop of a large glacier capping the mountain tops. The scenery is amazing.

More amazing mountains, more lava fields, waterfalls, rivers, creeks & lakes with lush farms, fat sheep & goats plus lots of horses on farms. The rain is on & off as we drive north to Arnastapi & check into the hotel for the night. Afterwards we go for a walk (the sun doesn’t set until 10 pm & it is still light afterwards for a long time), there are lots of nesting Arctic Terns flying around as it is nesting time & they are nesting in the long grass around the hotel & around the small town. There is a clifftop walk that we take & the basalt cliffs are teeming with nesting seabirds with amazing rock formations as a bonus. One rock formation called “Gatklettur” looks extraordinary. The path takes us all the way to the boat harbour & we walk back to the hotel along the road, more nesting Arctic Terns & we spot one pair with a curious chick on the ground, it is very cute. A thoroughly enjoyable walk to cap off a great day.