Iceland 2015 Day 5 to 8 In and around Snæfellsnes Part 2

DJUPALONSANDUR & DRITVIK
The place I started was amazing. You had to walk through lava formations with some 'hidden' lagunes in it towards the beach, it makes you so humble to see piles of lava as big as a huge house that were once spit out by a volcano like it was nothing. Spending their time on the beach. And amongst them some totally shattered shipwreck from a British vessle that stranded in 1948 killing its 14 souls on board, its steel pieces still shattered over a huge area, returned to nature. You must have been a brave captain to sail these waters!

Djúpalónsholl

Nautastigur

Nautastigur

The 4 weightstones at Stallur used by fishermen in the past to check ability. You were not allowed to go to sea if you couldnt lift the second 54kg stone.

Söngklettur, the elves rock.

Shipwreck on Djúpalonsandur

Gatklettur, place of the hidden people. On clear days you would see Snæfellsnesjökull through it.

Kerling, the witch who watches out over the sea after she has been turned into stone

Troll.... again.

Kerling

 I walked on and found the trail to walk to Dritvik. I had a mission to find the labyrinth that sailormen set out ages ago.

The sign to the trail pointed up a hill full of boulders, stones and lava. Apparently the trail was just a barely visible trail over rocks and boulders, definitely not suitable for young kids, buggies and elderly people. Even I had struggles finding my way sometimes. You have to be carefull to not fall.
When I reached Dritvik after 1 km it turned out it was a much longer walk towards the labyrinth, and this was the shortest route anyway. The weather forecast wasnt very good for the afternoon, so I decided it to be smarter to return to my car, here you dont want to be alone if bad weather hits. The many shipwrecks are silent remembering you of that. Surely not as I forgot to mention this hike to safe travel. Something which I usually always do if I go out alone and dont expect many people to cross my path.

Follow the trail... to Dritvik

But the views are very rewarding

But the road never gets smoother :-)

Dritvik beach, to be explored a next time

The road back

I put this on my one day to do list, because I defenitely want to return here another time. It is so amazingly beautifull this area!

SAXHOL & SAXHOLAR
Saxhól is a crater in the west of the peninsula, and you can make a walk to the rims of it with beautifull views all around. It was the first time I even caught a glimpse of Snæfellsjökull.
Next to Saxól are more craters of which this one is biggest. I have no clue what its name is, I only found it to be called Saxhólar. But I have my doubts.
I was alone when I visited Saxhól and thats an amazing experience. It makes you so small so humble, so scared to think back when this was created. Though I cant imagine that moment. So much earthly forces at work is beyond imagination until you see it first hand.

Neighbouring crater "Saxhólar"

 

GRUNDARFJORDUR
Grundarfjordur is the lovely town I stay at. I drove by to and from Kirkjufell quite many times during my stay and on my last evening I decided to go walk up to the horses that are in the field below mount Kirkjufell. Those 3 horses in 3 different colors were always lining up at the fence begging for attention, so I would love love LOVE to take a picture of those 3 with the mountain in the background. It was nice weather and I dressed warmly and walked a bit through town, followed the road, passed the so typical Icelandic horse villages (riding schools, but they are really like small towns, the huge one in Reykjavik even has adresses for the stables, and houses probably close to 1000 horses). The horses were down there on the side of the road, I finally made it. And despite I never saw anyone at this horsevillage for all time I was here, today two people were there, and they drove down. It was really really my luck those people were on the way to those horses to get them into a pasture with some new grass. So those horses were all attention towards these people and never to me. What a blast, really just my luck to have this ;-) Of course the horses were happy to see their owners and get some new fresh grass. Cant blame them. But I walked one hour for almost nothing and decided to go back to the hotel, to take a soak in the hot tub. Despite of it the water was so murky and drowned flies floated all around. My joy didnt last long. The idea sounded nicer than it actually was. No auroras, no killerwhales in the bay behind me. Luck not on my side, definitely not. But still too happy for being here. :-)

Kirkjufell

Kirkjufellfoss

STYKKISHOLMUR

My last stop would be Stykkisholmur, the biggest town of Snæfellsnes. Its also a fishermantown, with lovely colorfull houses dating back to saga times. Its also the place where you can take the ferry to go to the West Fjords. And weather was so good it was so tempting for me to go to Westfjords today. But I decided to not do,  I climbed the basalt cliffs at the harbour, watching out over the bay where rainbows and ravens colored the sky. As a fast speed tourist I left the town shortly after. Traveling at no budget made me that way. I was left with a whole afternoon with no plans now, so I decided to drive my way to Eldborg crater, my navigation was positive about the distance, but thats quite normal. As soon as you drive a bit it 'suddenly' takes a bit longer. Much longer in most cases. So not long on the way I decided to go back and drive 574 once more.

Stykkisholmur

BORGARFJORDUR

On my way to Gauksmyri in north Iceland, the autumn colors intensified. I felt a terrible urge to just go to Hraunfossar, because especially this waterfall is dressed in awesome autumn outfit. So there I went, off to Húsafell and Hraunfossar. But it rained there, so I didnt stay very long. Basicly only hopped out of the car to take some pictures and ignored the neighbour waterfall Barnarfoss.
The colors were amazing here, so sad it rained quite a lot. I waited a bit but it didnt seem to go better any time soon.

On my way north I visited another waterfall Glannifoss. Its next to Grábrok volcano, a nice walk through the Icelandic forest brings you there. But there were no signs how to walk, so I just followed a trail into the bushes and ended up at the top of the waterfall. Here also was a fish/salmon trap. Despite the waterfall looks wild, I still dont think this fishtrap is an easy go for fishes to return to the source of the river to breed and die. But obviously it works. It still wasnt the best of all weather.

The beautifull trail that leads to the top of Glannifoss

Glannifoss is not really that high or big but has a huge flow. In the front its the top of the fish (salmon)trap.

The fishtrap, you wonder how fish (salmon) do find their way in this maze up against the stream...

Top of Glannifoss, I didnt go downstream to get the whole picture. Weather was not that good.

Fishtrap from another angle

When passing by Bífrost, I left Borgarfjordur. I was planning to visit Eirikstadir, so I took road 60 to Budardalir.

BUDARDALIR  
Road 60 is by far the most stunning most amazing and most wonderfull road I have driven so far in Iceland. Through a huge deep canyon riddled with steep climbs, and countless waterfalls, I had trouble focussing on the road as I didnt know where to look really. But my dream to lazy around as a tourist was quickly killed by a truck that had probably driven here thousands times and was in hurry to get at destination in time. I dont know what it is with truckdrivers in Iceland but I dont like them. Its like third time they push me over the speed limits. And on this road there barely is chance to let them pass. So did the best I could. Not taking pictures while driving however I didnt dare to on this road haha! 
Eirikstadir was on another canyon, had to get there by a gravel road with lots of sheep. I missed my chance to picture one with sheep on the beach as if they were like relaxing a day off at the beach. 

Once I reached Eirikstadir, I was sad it was all closed. I expected it to be open year round, and was kind of excited to see a settlements house from the inside. But it was closed. Up on the hill there would be some ruins of the farm of Leifur Eirikson who discovered America before Columbus did. This part of Iceland is very rich in history and sagas. 

Replica of the old turfhouse of Leifur Eiriksson, who discovered America before Columbus did.

The toilet was not closed and I was very happy about that. It was worth a 100km drive if you needed that! And so I drove the same way back, finally leaving my Snæfellsnes adventure to go for horse adventures. I reached Gauksmyri rather quickly, I settled in and caught up with the familiars which is quite nice to experience.  

Iceland 2015 Day 5 to 8 In and around Snæfellsnes Part 1

Must be one of the most pictured houses in Snæfellsnes. Arnarstappi.

I decided to put my Snæfellsnes blogs together in one, as on 4 days I mainly drove the same ways, visited different places, but some more than once. So probably would be a bit more orderly to put it all in one or two blogs . It doesnt matter for readers to know when and in what order I visited which places :-) Just enjoy it while I mix photo's with short stories, experiences even a short movie. Lots of rainbows and other things that ran my mind. Fitting 4 days in one or two blogs saves me some time too :-)

Here is a map with the roads I have been driving (I also drove to Húsafell on my departure day). I started of course with the road 1 from Reykjavik and in Borganes I left road 1 to go to Snæfellsnes as I wrote about in my previous blog.

SNÆFELLSBÆR
Snæfellsbær is basicly the whole western part of the peninsula, the area surrounding Snæfelljökull.  The first full day in Snæfellsnes I decided to circle around this area that is seen as the center of the Earth, starting from Olafsvik a town like Grundarfjordur but at the northwestern tip of the peninsula. Kirkjufell showed itself today which was nice. But right at Kirkjufell, gravelroad started. I dont like the popcorning and passing cars in high speed so easily damage your car... so I drove for like a km and decided to turn around as I thought it would last until Olafsvik. Later that day I discovered I turned around just a few 100 meter before it ended. I just didnt see it as it was behind a hill. They are working a lot on improving roads in Iceland, almost all once gravel roads that are frequently used are ungraveled now into clean well kept roads.

So I drove the other way, took road 56 again and stopped at Vatnaheidi (I obviously cant pass by here to endulge myself in this tranquility and beautifull unearthly surroundings and later moved on to Arnarstappi, following the more rough volcanic area which has road 574 on it. Once this was also a gravel road, like all roads with 3 digits. But this one has also been 'paved' and can be driven by any car. 

ARNARSTAPPI
Arnarstappi is a small town, famed for its amazing rock formations on the coast line. Arnarstappi used to be a fishermantown, like most towns in this area, but is now a tourists destination. You can find a lot of holes in the shore which formed open caves and arches you can walk over. Scary when windy but during my visit the weather was awesome. Its impressive to hear the ocean crash underneath you and water spraying up. And thats just how this grottos were created over the time Iceland was created relatively not long ago (90000) years ago.

Many arches and caves like this on the shore west of Arnarstappi. You can walk on all this arches.

A troll, like you find so many around here.

Basalt formations on the coastline of Arnarstappi

HELLNAR
Then off to Hellnar, also a coast with lots of lavarock formations, stags and rugged coastline. A beautifull rainbow curved out towards a craterlike mountain named Stapafell. Mount Snæfell should be in the distance, but its top remained covered in clouds to see it completely. This area is out of this world, the roads are amazing to drive through, unreal lava formation tower up everywhere you look, covered in moss and autumn coloring trees. Imagine how this place looks like with some more sunlight!

Bad weather while I was at Hellnar. But the sunlight makes it look so dramatic, so Icelandic!

The brightest rainbow ever for me, with Stapafell mountain in the background.

MALARRIF & LONDRANGAR
A bit further on to the west we find Malariff with its iconic lighthouse and its other icons Lóndrangar, some huge stags (Litli (68m) og Stora (75m) Dranga) standing solitairy in a lava field. They are remains of what once was a crater, huge basalt pinnacles remained while the rest has eroded away by sea and storms. Only the hill Svalthufa is the other remains of this once crater and this is said to be resident of the hidden people, even if its grassy, farmers never used it for farming because of not wanting to upset the elves. Lóndrangar are also elf residentials, the large one an elf university, the smaller one its library. But Lóndrangar is also a place where lots of birds find shelter and have nests. I pictured them from the distance and decided to drive on a bit towards Dritvik for a short hike, hoping to find the labyrint there.

Lóndrangar, with in the distance Svalthufa (not the shadow)