Hello all. Day 2 of our driving adventure and so far there is a strong consensus between us that driving is far better than biking. Don't get me wrong biking is fun, but boy is it nice to be in an enclosed heated car when it is raining and cold. Another consensus is that Iceland is stunning. The views and landscapes are so dynamic and change all the time, just as you start to get used to a view it completely changes. Anyway now to the post, and again I am writing this on the day, but given the state of wifi and such I do not know when this will post or if the pictures will post with it.
We began our day in the sunshine, just as we had ended our last day. The 24 hours of light is bizarre. I woke up at one point in the night around 2:00am and it was still as bright as it was at 11:30pm when I fell asleep. When I first got out of the tent the sun was actually poking its head out from behind the clouds and it was nice and warm, but that did not last long and by the time we were making and eating breakfast it had gotten cold and super windy. Luckily though we got the camp all broken down and loaded up before it actually started to rain.
We started our day heading to the Western Fjords, where we had planned to sort of wrap our way all around them. Driving along the fjords was nice all the roads were mostly paved, but the road did follow every little peninsula and inlet which made the driving slow going. The weather also was not great, it was rather rainy and when we climbed the mountains it was super foggy. This wasn't necessarily a bad thing as it gave everything a very mystic and enchanting feeling. The pictures really do not do them justice, but they can tell the story probably better than I can.
After about three hours of driving we pulled into a little hamlet that had a small restaurant and ate some lunch. During lunch we decided that our goal of lapping the fjords and then the next day going to black beaches in the far south of Iceland was unrealistic, so we did some new planning. What we decided to do was loop back a bit and take a rugged mountain road across the peninsula to the other sides and then drop a bit to the south of the fjords and camp there. The mountain pass was amazing, slow going but super fun and some incredible views! Check out some of the pictures to get an idea of the majesty. The driving was super fun too with some rocky sections, some river fording, some muddy sections, and everything else to keep us entertained. What was also fun about the pass was that it was so windy at points that the wind was coming in at just shy of a 90 degree angle to us, so when I rolled down a window to take a picture or something rain would just fly straight through the car.
On the other side we came out onto a real road and it was like we had teleported to an entirely new region. I really cannot stress how dynamic the landscape is here. Sure it is all somewhat barren and desolate looking but it is all different kinds and levels of barren and desolate. I have taken so many pictures today, because every corner has something new and something beautiful. The driving for the rest of the day was pretty straight forward. It was mostly on paved roads and we just went in and out of the rain.
We ended up driving a bit further than originally planned because it was raining at our planned stop and the campsite looked essentially like a swamp so we pushed on to the next campsite a bit further south. We are having another simple meal of some pasta tonight. It is kind of funny how we are now traveling in the most comfortable form (in a car) and yet we have the least amenities of the whole trip. Anyway, tomorrow we will push on to the black beaches in the south. For now that is all I have so all the best and until next time.
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