Sunday, we have slept a thousand sleeps and are ready for car adventure ✨ We’re heading up to the Westfjords, about five hours north of Reykjavik – time to visit sheeps, see zero people, and hopefully lots of fjords.
Our first stop though – hot springs! Hvammsvik hot springs, just off the ring road north of Reykjavik. I actually wanted our first overnight to be here, but they were both totally booked up and also far more than I was willing to pay, so never mind that adventure. (Secondarily, I had wanted our first overnight to be at the Blue Lagoon, because wouldn’t that be neat? Yeah, that was $1000 a person, so – never mind).
Nestled between nesting oystercatchers are your hot pools, ranging in temperatures from “too hot for me, the lizard queen,” to “just right” to “cold plunge in the bay.” It of course has a lovely swim-up bar in the hottest pool (all the fancy hot springs have swim-up bars).
Today, I feel gutsy: like ya girl can absolutely 100% cold plunge. I can get into the hot pool again right after, I can do this. Cold plunges are good for you and your nervous system (and mine is so good at being nervous). Despite my grit and aggressive wading, I tragically didn’t make it in more than up to my knees. But we do enjoy our soak and lo we hit the road, after 90 minutes of becoming prunes.
Because we don’t want $30 soup from the hot spring, we go up the road a hair and find a little waterfall and a picnic spot to enjoy our sandwiches. The walk to the falls is dotted with lupines – which I will later learn are invasive.
Lupines are everywhere and they were planted to help prevent soil erosion. Now, some locals are ripping them out, which I can sympathize with because fuck creeping bellflower. However, we don’t have the insane level of wind erosion they do here, so maybe I wouldn’t rip them up if I lived here.
The falls are super lovely, and this one is named after Rhett (fossarret) (ok, not really). It’s a nice little break after soaking in the warmth of the springs and we enjoy our road sammies as the rain starts.
Once we are sufficiently sandwiched, we carry on our merry way up to the Westfjords, home to less than 2% of Iceland’s population, sheepies, fjords, and puffins. It’s definitely a very different flavor from the rest of Iceland – a lot of abandoned buildings and farms – and it’s a good way to sample what isn’t insanely touristy.
On the way, we stop to enjoy some ice cream at Erpsstaðir creamery, a quick detour off the ring road and strategically on our way to the Westfjords. I have become a huge ice cream snob in the last few years, and I am fearing that this ice cream will disappoint, despite fond memories of it being deeeelicious.
This ice cream actually does not disappoint me at all. This is insanely high praise, because I find almost every single ice cream in vacation spots disappointing. No matter the flavor, it just tastes like the flavor is sugar. This ice cream is wonderful blueberry, not overly sweet and delightfully creamy. I could eat a pint or five easily.
But now, it’s the long part of the drive. Just like home, summer is also the season for road construction in Iceland! Yeehaw! We find lots of road construction, and lots of snow still up in the mountain passes. You can kind of see where the old/previous roads were, and sometimes the maps are wrong and tell us the road is slightly to the left or right. I wonder how long ago the road was in the older places. It’s probably easier to move the road than to fix it, because there are sheer drops on the side of the road.
We’re staying just north of Dynjandifoss, the best waterfall in Iceland. Last time, we found Dynjandifoss entirely accidentally, after coming back down and around from a swing up to the Arctic Fox Center in Súðavík. This time, there’s a tunnel/bypass road built just after the falls, heading north, which cuts an hour off our drive time but also very sadly robs us of a lovely view of the falls.
We make it to our palatial modern house in the middle of a tiny “town” (if you can call it that) – it’s filled with mostly abandoned buildings, sheep, and a stunning view of the fjords nearby. This house was built by a famous architect and was apparently a schoolhouse, back when people actually lived here. There is literally nothing else in this town – the closest gas and groceries are across the fjord in Þingeyri.
Anyhoo the sun “sets” at like 12:45am. On our last day, this place will be officially in polar day – no sunset. We arrive. We walk to the fjordy beach and listen to the birds. We find a weird abandoned house/barricade near a stream and ponder what it was here for, because currently, nature is reclaiming it and its purpose seems to be tetanus. Neat.
We did the tetanus house around 10pm. I was awake at 1am (because night owl woman), so I happened to take a pic of “sunset.” This is as dark as it gets!
Our Monday adventure is to Ísafjörður. It’s a nice quick drive up from our air bnb, home to some shops, cafes, and a little museum – the Westfjord History Museum. The museum details life in the fjords in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The main industry was, of course, fishing. Men would fish, and women and children had the job of washing & preparing the catches – in freezing cold water.
A local woman – Karitas – was fed up with poor conditions and the stranglehold companies seemed to have over average workers. She was married off at the age of 16 in exchange for….a building. This galvanized her and turned her into a labor leader for the rest of her life – she organized a labor rights movement for better wages + working conditions in Ísafjörður.
In the mid-1900s, it was home to wife school, where Icelandic women could learn how to be proper wives and homemakers. I would absolutely fail this school, but it did produce an incredible weaving & textile community.
Also of importance, this museum also had A REAL CAT in one of the display beds, and a super killer collection of accordions on the 2nd floor.
Also in Ísafjörður, it is sweater time: I half wanted a new lopapeysa (Icelandic wool sweater) on this trip, but only if the stars aligned. Well, the stars aligned at Karitas (named after said labor leader) – a small shop run by a group of local ladies who knit. They have lopis and hats and mittens and all kinds of things.
I particularly want a pink sweater. Here, it exists. Here, it fits perfectly. Don’t ask me how much I paid for it (they will be more expensive in Reykjavik anyway).
I did have to earn the sweater though – the lady’s card reader was not happy. After some google translate, I manage to figure out the wifi on the machine is off, for some reason. I am honestly not sure she knows how to connect to the wifi at the shop, so I tether her card reader to my (internationally roaming) phone, pray that Verizon doesn’t decide this warrants a ten bajillion dollar charge, and voila! The card reader works.
She is the nicest old lady in the land and I hope she figures out how to work the thing for the next person.
And now, I have sweater.
Today’s waterfall & lunch is just outside of Ísafjörður – the rain decides to rain a bit more. We hike up the little waterfall, (Bunarfoss) – which isn’t too bad of a walk. It’s somewhat treacherous but mostly there are safe places to stop and behold the falling water.
We have a cozy evening ahead of our Car Day on Tuesday, which will take us over to Latrabjarg birb cliffs (to see some puffy bois).
