Day 30 – 8 August 2023 – Patreksfjordur to Isafjordur, Iceland

Away around 9 am & our first stop is the “Ghost Ship”, an old fishing boat that has been stranded in the top end of the fjord since the 1980s. We are driving to Latrabjarg this morning, some very high sea cliffs with millions of breeding seabirds. The road turns to dirt very soon after the ghost ship & we start hugging the side of huge mountains with enormous drops into the fjord far below. It is slow going & we average around 40 km/hr on the rough dirt road with steep climbs & descents & lots of slow corners, plus it is narrow & oncoming cars are a challenge.

We pass an old local museum that has a wrecked US Navy plane looking very forlorn outside plus a couple of old wooden fishing boats that are falling apart. The road is terrible, however the views are amazing & we finally make it to Latrabjarg. There is a tall white tower & we walk to that to read the information pages then walk over to the cliff. There are seabirds everywhere in the water below plus seals. Seabirds are flying onto & off the cliffs below us. Then we see the puffins, these small seabirds are so cute & they are right on the edge of the cliff at the top nesting in the dirt in burrows. We are so close to them we spend ages just watching. We talk to others there & go wandering a little further down looking at the seals before heading back up for one more look at the puffins, they are adorable.

The roads back out are just as bad with lots & lots of vehicles heading out to Latrabjarg. We wind in & out along fjords, up & down over high mountain passes, drive above the snow patches on the mountain tops, the scenery is stunning, the driving is strenuous. We stop at numerous places on the road to take photos then we stop at Dynjandi, an amazing large waterfall with a big water volume falling a long way, it looks spectacular. There are lots of tourists here enjoying the view & having picnics in the sunshine.

Just after Dynjandi the road turns to bitumen again & the drive is more pleasant until we come to roadworks, then another slow 15 km of very bad soft dirt as new road is being rebuilt over the top of a huge mountain range. The road is bitumen the rest of the way thankfully. Outside of Isafjordur we enter a really long tunnel that is single lane, around 7.5 km. Thankfully there are lots of turnout points for oncoming traffic & everyone obeys the rules. We exit up the side of a mountain looking down onto the Isafjardardjup & the harbour has two big cruise ships in it, one is the Holland America ship the Zaandam. There are lots of tourists walking around the town of Isafjordur, some with maps in hand looking lost. Towns are few & far between, this is the first place where we hopefully can get something to eat, it is 3.30pm & we haven’t eaten since breakfast, we are starving. We stop at a shopping centre & order a shawarma & falafel from the local Lebanese shop (as you do in Iceland). Well, that was a mistake, it was so salty (Tereza couldn’t eat hers) & we washed it down with a Basil seed drink flavoured with sour cherry – something we had not even seen previously.

We then drove back into the tunnel to drive to our accommodation for the night, however, turned off inside the tunnel at a T intersection to drive through another tunnel about 4 km long & again exited on a mountain looking down at a lush green farm at the head of yet another fjord. Sudureyri is our town for the night & we are staying at the Fisherman Guesthouse, we only drove past it once before finding it on the way back. Sudureyri is another small fishing village with a small boat harbour & a large cluster of houses. We booked in & our room is upstairs with a shared bathroom downstairs, shared with five rooms. Tereza grumbled that she never stayed in a hotel where she shared a bathroom let alone 10 people, 1 shower & toilet in the same room, but we are in the middle of nowhere in Iceland. We though that would be a real problem but the main issue we had was walking up & down the steep staircase (everyone avoided the bathroom as much as possible so luckily we had no traffic jam). We shared a nice fish & chip meal at the café at the Fisherman Café then back to our room. The room was very warm, we had to open the window as the sun was shining in it until around 10 pm before the sun went behind the mountain, but at 11 pm it is still light. In the morning it is light by about 4am.  A long but great day.