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)