Snæfellsnes Peninsula

Sunday, June 8, 2014

It doesn't get dark  here.  It makes it way too easy to go to bed late!  At night Frankie wears eye shades, and sometimes Anton hangs his coat over the window.  A bonus:  it makes finding the washroom in the middle of the night much easier.

We were the first ones down to breakfast so no bumping elbows at the small buffet areas.  Every single breakfast has been the SAME:  a continental Nordic thing.  Bread, yogurt, boiled eggs, meat and cheese slices, cereal, a small choice of fruit, and tomatoes and cucumbers.

Today we took our time going around the Snæfellsnes Peninsula.  The Snæfellsnes Peninsula has been called a miniature Iceland because of its many iconic features, including volcanoes, basalt cliffs, glaciers, lava fields, waterfalls, craters, etc.  The receptionist at last night's hotel was very helpful in mapping out some interesting sites for us.  There are a lot!

There were lots of sheep on the road again today.  The little black ones are adorable.

On the way to our first site, we saw a little church and stopped for a picture.  Anton got divebombed by Arctic terns again.

We took a gravel sideroad to Ondverdarnes, right along the coast, where we found a solar heated lighthouse.  The lighthouses are quite small here, and bright orange.

We found Saxholl crater and climbed up 109 meters.  It was VERY slippery in both directions, so they had metal grates to climb.  It was peaceful because we were the only ones there.

Nearby was Holaholar crater, very unique because we drove our car right into the crater.  There is a big parking lot in the middle of the crater.  Probably the wall of the crater collapsed at some point, and it's a low crater to begin with.

We drove into Djupalonssandur which had been highly recommended, but the road ended!  We figured out it must be a hiking trail, which we didn't have time for.

At 10 am we took a guided tour of Vatnshellir Cave (Water Cave). Scientists believe Vatnshellir was created in an eruption between 6,000-8,000 years ago. This is a lava cave, or tube. A lava tube is formed by flowing lava which moves beneath the hardened surface of a lava flow. This tube is extinct, meaning the lava has stopped flowing and has cooled, leaving a long, cave-like channel. 

We travelled about 200 meters into the cave and 35 meters below the surface. There are two main sections. The upper section has stalactites and stalagmites formed by dripping lava.  

The lower part of the lava cave was reached by a long and narrow staircase. These caves had been undiscovered for thousands of years.  Then tourists started coming and taking bits of it away as souvenirs, so the government shut it down and only reopened it to the public in 2011, but with guided tours.  Even then, the guides don't catch everything.  Just last week a tourist walked away with an arctic fox skull from a skeleton that had been there for 40 years.

There were 7 of us on the tour, not too crowded.  At one point in the lower level, the guide had us all turn off our flashlights and just listen to the cave.  It was pitch dark down there, there would be NO adjusting to that darkness.  The guide took pictures of us (no flash) and called our shadows trolls behind us.

Lóndrangar is a site that has two prominent rocks (cliffs) that stand like pillars on the coast of the peninsula. They are 75 m and 61 m tall. The taller one is called “Christian Pillar” and the shorter one is “Heathen Pillar”. They are actually volcanic plugs of basalt. A volcanic plug is a volcanic landform created when magma hardens within a vent on an active volcano.

We got a phone call on our Nordic Visitor cell phone (Anton doesn't know how to use it because it is not a smartphone!).  There were not enough people for our 12:00 tour but we could take the 2:00 one if we wanted.  So we spent the time taking a 2.5 km trail between the two villages of Arnarstapi to Hellnar both small fishing villages), and back again.  The trail went through lava fields and along the coast, we would guess it is a moderate difficulty.  It was a very nice trail, we were glad for the delay.  Today we felt that we were running from site to site so quickly that we didn't have time to stop and enjoy anything, so the hike was nice.

We were finally ready to take our excursion!  There are 4 national parks in Iceland. Snæfellsjökull is a national park that contains an active volcano covered by a glacier of the same name. The mountain is one of the most famous sites of Iceland, mainly because of the 1864 Jules Verne novel Journey to the Center of the Earth. On Snæfellsjökull, the main characters find the entrance to a passage leading to the center of the earth.

We were told that we had to drive right up to the foot of the glacier.  We tried that once before on this trip, the glacier kept retreating.  And our GPS got quite mad at us because we were on an F-road.  It took 15 minutes up the mountain and some interesting road encounters, but we made it.  To tour the Snæfellsjökull Glacier, the Snjofell company uses snow cats. A snowcat is a truck-sized snowmobile (they're really built for grooming ski hills). These had bench space for 20 passengers and were open so riders could enjoy the views along the way. 

We were taken all the way up the glacier, to about 4,600 feet above sea level.  There was a crack that our guide warned us to stay away from because it was breaking off. At the top there was one little peak that people were climbing and then snowboarding down or even sliding on their butts.  They were creating little avalanches.

The top of the glacier was very soft snow that we sank into, and got our socks and shoes all wet.  Not ice like we expected.

After our excursion, we kept going around the peninsula.  We drove into Budir and found a small church and graveyard. There had been several churches on this spot, but the perish was "abolished" whatever that means.  One lady fought and fought for a new church, she was finally given permission to build a new one in 1848.  There is a quote on the door ring that says, "This church was built in 1848 without the support of the spiritual fathers."

From the church we took a short hike towards the coast.  We actually found sand hills.  Very unusual for Iceland!  From here we could see the Buðahraun lava field and the Buðaklettur crater.

Across the road was Barnafoss waterfall (Child Falls), so named because there is a legend of two children getting lost and falling into the waterfall.

We did a pull up stop at Gerðuberg.  Gerðuberg is a wall of basalt columns that form geometric patterns in the cliffs. Gerðuberg was created when basaltic lava emerged from the sea, then cooled and solidified in very uniform columns. These are between 1 and 1.5 m wide and 7-14 m high.

We travelled through the Hvalfjörður Tunnel, which is a 5.7 km long tunnel under the fjord of the same name. It reaches a depth of 165m below sea level. It is a 7 minute drive. At 2-3 lanes wide, it seemed quite easy after some of the tunnels we travelled through in northern Iceland.  

The tunnel shortens the drive to Reykjavik by 45 km and 50 minutes. It is also the only tunnel where tolls are charged ($10). No worries, they took credit cards. The money goes to pay for the construction of the tunnel, and when the investment has been fully repaid the tunnel will become property of the state. The original plan assumed it would take 20 years (until 2018) to pay back the cost of building the tunnel, but traffic has proved to be significantly higher than originally projected. The volume of traffic is so high that the operator of the tunnel has suggested building a new tunnel alongside the current one. The Hvalfjörður Tunnel received a bad rating in the 2010 European tunnel test. Different aspects were criticized, especially the weak lighting, absence of an automatic fire alarm system, weak ventilation in case of a fire, and too far a distance to the next fire station (28 km).

We arrived back in Reykjavik at 7 pm.  There were a lot of speed cameras and tons of roundabouts getting into the city.  We decided to eat dinner at the Perlan revolving restaurant, it takes 2 hours for it to revolve once, with great views of Reykjavik.  Of course they "recommended" the 4 course meal for each of us, at $90 each, ouch.  We went for a simple meal each, no drinks, no appetizers, and no desserts, and paid $90 total.

Then back to our original hotel, we have come full circle.  Do the blog, repack.  Get ready for our last day tomorrow!