Iceland Day 2: Snæfellsnes Peninsula to Bíldudalur

Three things:

1. Earlier this year, when I told a friend we were planning a trip to Iceland, she waxed fondly about Icelandic wool and said she'd heard you can buy yarn in every grocery store.

2. Tap water in Borgarnes tastes and smells like sulfur.

3. Before heading out of Borgarnes on Wednesday morning, we stopped in at a grocery store to buy bottled water, and saw this:

Mary, this photo is for you

Our focus on Wednesday was twofold: exploring (too briefly) the Snæfellsanes peninsula en route to Stykkishólmur, then taking a ferry north from Stykkishólmur to Brjánslækur in the West Fjords and continuing by car to Bíldudalur. All day, the scenery provided one surprise after another.

Our first stop north of Borgarnes was at the Gerðuberg cliffs, where columnar jointed volcanic rocks form an exposed ~2km wall jutting upward.

After a quick climb, we headed west to drive around the Snæfellsnes peninsula--not the most direct route, but surely the most beautiful. I started taking panoramic photos to capture the immensity of the views; they look petite below, so click on them to enlarge.

From a hilltop west of Arnarstapi, looking east...

...and looking west. The mountain Snæfellsjökull has its head in the clouds. 

Our next stop was Malarrif, where we walked in the direction of the lighthouse thinking we were heading to the black sand beach Djúpalónssandur. Consequently, we missed seeing some amazing rock formations, but nonetheless enjoyed seeing beaches of polished black rocks and pebbles. 

This stop provided a view back to the Lóndrangar rock pillars. The pillars eroded from a crater; the taller of the two is about 75m high. That makes the pillar on the right in the following photo about 40 times taller than the beloved family on the left in the photo. The pillars are a few kilometers farther away than the people.

Back into the car we hopped, and we continued around to the north side of the peninsula. At one point, mosses suddenly yielded to barren lava fields.

We read in our guide book that an Icelandic delicacy is made by burying a shark for a few months until the flesh ferments. The book said that for beginners, the rotted dark meat is more palatable than the rotted white meat, and not to fret if it was all unpalatable, because most Icelanders find it unpalatable as well. It's usually followed up with a shot of ice-cold liqueur made with caraway seeds. We passed on an opportunity to try it.

We arrived in Stykkishólmur with time to spare before the 3:45pm ferry, so we walked from the parking lot to the ticket office to exchange our reservation for tickets and to gawk at the prices of items for sale. The current exchange rate is about 120 krona per dollar; gloves that would cost about $30 in the US were running a little under twice that in Stykkishólmur. This makes a lot of sense, given how little industry, manufacturing, and agriculture there is here; most things need to be imported.

Stykkishólmur harbor

Rock formations in Stykkishólmur harbor

Leaving Stykkishólmur

A little past halfway between Stykkishólmur to Brjánslækur, the ferry docked briefly at the island Flatey.

Flatey. That's about the size of it...

Wee lighthouse shortly past Flatey

Views of local rain as we approached Brjánslækur  

Looking west at the West Fjords

Iceland is the land of rainbows. More rainbows to follow in a separate post.

The West Fjords are pretty isolated; our guide book claims only 3% of tourists come here. Fjords don't make for linear travel, but what one loses in direct routes, one gains in jaw-dropping views.

A view of Arnarfjörður, the fjord on which Bíldudalur lies

What we have been calling Icelandic truffula trees is formally known as cotton grass.

Below are some views from the back porch of the little house we rented in Bíldudalur. The town was a thriving fishing and trading village in the 19th century; much smaller today (population 166 in 2011), it hosts an algae-processing plant, fish farms, and tourists.