Snæfellsnes Peninsula, Iceland
Day 3. Left the hotel at 8am to start our journey north up to the Snæfellsnes Peninsula.
Did a quick driver change at Eldborg, where you start to see the dynamic mountains sprouting up. We also did a food and bathroom stop in the small town of Grundar, which was only a few minutes from Kirkjufell Mountain (2.5 hours from Reyk). There’s only one grocery store here on the main road, so you can’t miss it if you’re following this itinerary. Kirkjufell was beautiful but not exactly how I had imagined from all the photos I’ve seen. I thought it cascaded down from the peak to all all sides, but in reality, it only has that china hat shape from one specific angle. Still the sight was beautiful and reading the importance of the mountain and how it physically demonstrated frozen glacier layers and erosion was interesting.
As we continued on the northeast road around the peninsula we hit a bend that gave us a view of an incredible black sand beach with a snowcapped mountain draped behind. Brimilsvellir. This seemed like the perfect place to capture the bikini line we had brought to shoot. (Yes…Rachael asked if I would shoot Maui Girl Swimwear while venturing around Iceland and I said yes. And Yes, I AM crazy.) The wind was ripping at the car but there wasn’t going to be a better place than this to capture one of the suits. So I changed and bit the bullet of going from freezing to frozen.
Once back in the car and relatively defrosted the road trip continued. We took a left and followed our map to Snekkjufossm, which is off a gravel road for about 3miles and then a .5 mile hike to the actual waterfall.
(The drive to this point is pretty much the circumference of the Snæfellsnes National Park.)
It had felt good to do a little walk while being solely in the car for so long.
Next we hit Djúpalónssandur Beach, which is a black sand beach that has an old boat wreckage scattered across it. You can take two different paths here. One leads down to the black corse sand, while the other gives you a heightened perspective of the beach. (There are no wrong choices.) To continue down the road the next dot on the map was Lóndrangar View Point. Volcanic pillars that are easy to spot and you stop at them right off the road. This is also the point in which the many miles and sites started to weigh us down and rest became very attractive.
Now battling against the suns gravitational pull and lack of sleep, we had two more spots to hit before we lost all our daylight. We made it to Bjarnarfoss just as the sun was retiring for the evening. The waterfall and experience quickly became my favorite of the trip. I also captured one of the best photos I’ve taken in a really long time.
After the sun took its final breath of the day we swung by the black church called Búðakirkja, which is right next to the Hotel Budir. At the hotel we ended up enjoying happy hour drinks and dinner. The view from their quaint lobby was jaw dropping and when I return to this country I will for sure be staying here.
Exhausted but aware that we couldn’t sleep in the Hotel Budir lobby we made our way towards our booked accommodation, Kast Guesthouse. As our headlights stretched across the black horizon the clouds must have split because I noticed an unusual light in the sky. We pulled over in hopes it was what we had hoped for… What so many people seek to see.. The Northern Lights.
