My plan for the morning was to head up Eldfell - the slightly lower of the two red volcanoes that lie on Heimaey's eastern side. Eldfell erupted in January 1973, resulting in the addition of just over two square kilometres of land being created. I'd hiked across the lava fields and up the hill (it's not really a mountain) from the town with my husband on our 2009 visit, and hoped to do something similar.
I packed up and headed out in the car towards the base. I wasn't sure where to park, so tried a couple of places - the first right next to town, and the second just outside - checking the location on Google Maps and realising that the trailhead was still miles away. I ended up driving to the trailhead car-park, which actually gave me a very short walk up the side of the volcano - not quite the hike I'd envisaged. Oh well, it meant that I could definitely make the earlier ferry, giving me more time back on the mainland. The weather was a little grey, with the usual spots of brightness over the sea in the distance.
It's an incredible volcano, with some wonderful crusty formations at the top of the crater, mostly red but with some yellow too. As I got to the summit (it's only 205m high, and I think I must have started at about 100m!) the sun came out, intensifying the crazy colours.
From the top I watched a container ship heading east towards Dyrhólaey - it was clear enough in the distance to see the arch there, where I'd be a few hours later.
I wandered down eventually, stopping to take a few more shots along the crater rim, including some of some people hiking and on quad bikes down in the weird volcanic landscape below. The sun was even more intense on the red lava hillside now.
I got back to the car, took a few photos of some lovely lupins, and then headed down towards the port. I drove down to the ferry terminal and asked if I could change my ticket to the earlier ferry, which again was no problem (and free!).
I still had a little time to kill, so I drove back out of town again and stopped at the car-park opposite Stafkirkjan, a black-painted wooden church and house sitting at the entrance to the harbour. I took a few photos and had a wander to the water's edge and watched the ferry come in.
I drove back to the ferry and pulled up into the queue, and soon I was on, this time fortuitously right at the front of the line so I'd be first off the ferry at Landeyjahöfn. I headed up to the deck to enjoy the view for the journey, armed with the camera kit. It was still stunning weather as we sailed out of Heimaey, but I could just see that the weather on the mainland in the distance was anything but lovely - dark clouds and visible rain hung over the hills near the coast.
We sailed past the two islands of Elliðæy and Bjarnarey, accompanied by fulmars, gracefully skimming the still surface of the sea. The sun glistened on the water; it was blissful.
As we got further away from Heimaey the weather ahead seemed to worsen - it didn't bode well for my extra hours exploring the south coast! It was quite beautiful from a distance though.
It didn't look quite so bad a little further west, where I planned to go first, so I felt a little better about that.
As we approached Landeyjahöfn we were accompanied by even more birds - there were lots of puffins sitting on the water (which I realised later from cropping in close on photos were holding fish in their beaks), as well as some gannets flying around and doing their amazing dives. As the boat got closer to the puffins they would do the most ridiculous running-across-the-water attempt to fly and sometimes would just dive under the water after failing to take off.
As we turned into the port we passed some eider ducks and arctic terns were flying around. I was the first car off the ferry, but stopped just outside the exit to take a picture of the terns and their massive gravel nest. Immediately - even though I was quite far away - they approached me and started flying towards my head. I took a few photos of them flitting around in the nearby grasses using the long lens, before heading on my way.
My next stop was a second attempt at visiting Gluggafoss, which wasn't too far away. The road back to the ring-road from the ferry port is a nice quick one, but obviously there was a lot of traffic as I'd missed my opportunity of being first off since I'd stopped to watch the birds. I took a left turn and then soon there was a right turn towards Múlakot, along the 250 gravel road. As soon as I was on the gravel the car beeping noise started again, that I'd heard when I'd disembarked a few days earlier in Heimaey. The orange warning light was still on, but no new light had come on to accompany this beeping. I got worried that my car was a dud, but continued. It wasn't the most interesting of roads, except for a small hill on the right about half way along. A little further on I noticed a young Asian couple standing at the side of the road, and their white non-SUV car was a few feet away from the road in the lupins and grasses, clearly stuck. It was odd, because there were no obvious tracks of how the car had got there. They weren't trying to flag me down, so I assumed help was already on the way.
At the end of the road I turned left onto a tarmac road (the beeping stopped - yay!) and soon I was at Gluggafoss, aka Merkjárfoss. It's not the most spectacular of waterfalls, but made for a nice detour, and there were only a couple of other cars there when I rocked up. The rain was fortunately in the distance still, so I was able to go on a little hike up the hill to the right of the falls without worrying about getting wet, after taking a couple on the tripod from the bottom.
The views above the falls were even more impressive than the bottom falls, I thought, but I couldn't get a spot where it was safe to set up my tripod, so I just took a few handheld with the ISO ramped up. The views back south were pretty nice too - still able to see all the way to Vestmannaeyjar. The hillsides were full of pretty yellow and white wildflowers.
The Icelandic word "glugga" means windows, apparently, so it's named after the holes in the rocks that the water falls through. It would have been nice to go a little further but I wanted to do a bit more exploring elsewhere, so headed back down and across the bridge to get a little closer to the main falls beneath the windows.
I was glad that the road closure on my way to Vestmannaejyar had meant that I hadn't visited on that day, as it would have been very rushed. I still didn't spend long there, but long enough to enjoy it, which wouldn't have been so easy in the half an hour I'd planned for. I wandered back to the car, enjoying the wildflowers along the river banks. An old man stood by the base of the lowest falls and smiled at me as I took photos of the flowers.
I drove back down the gravel road and the beeping didn't start again, so I felt a bit more reassured that the car would be okay. I passed the Asian couple, still waiting for someone to come and rescue their car from the ditch. I had a couple of options - head on towards Dyrhólaey, or go and explore a new place, recommended by Sigrún, as they'd visited a couple of days earlier. When I got to the turn-off up towards Nauthúsagil I was still not sure what to do, as I felt a bit weary, but took the turn anyway. And I was very glad I did.
The canyon is situated just off the gravel road leading up to Þorsmörk, before it turns into an F-road (and before the dangerous river crossings). I stopped along the way to capture the sweet little hill on the opposite side of the Markarfljót river, which I'd just driven past earlier (I cannot find a name for it on any map - UPDATE! - it's called Dímon!). Oh how I love Iceland's river braids!
Soon I was at the entrance to the canyon, where a few other cars were parked. Nauthúsagil is a small wooded canyon, which you wouldn't know was there unless someone pointed it out. The canyon follows a little river and soon you're surrounded by towering cliffs, some with wet, bare black volcanic rock, others covered by dripping bright green moss.
There is a point at which you need to first cross the river - hopping across a couple of large stones - and then haul yourself along and up a short section by grabbing onto chains. There were a few people there, so short human traffic jams built up. It reminded me of the wonderful Narrows hike I'd done a few years earlier in Zion National Park - another hike in a narrow canyon, although that one you spend a good deal of time wading through the river.
I didn't find it too hard, but had to put my camera away and it was still a little awkward holding the tripod too. A little further on I reached the end, where there is a very pretty waterfall, Gljúfurfoss. I had a minute or so to myself so was able to set the tripod up and take a couple of long exposures. Like in most canyons the photography was challenging, to say the least! The sky above was very bright, the water obviously white, the green leaves and moss were extremely bright, and the canyon walls were black.
Some more people arrived so I headed back down towards the little waterfall in the middle. I got a couple of brief opportunities to take pictures without people in them before the next lot arrived! It was very popular with Icelandic families; it was lovely to actually see Icelanders on holiday - something I've never seen on previous visits.
The crowds seemed to be getting heavier, so I took a last few tripod shots facing downstream and then headed out, passing some pretty purple flowers and bright green leaves on my way.
Not far from the canyon I passed a very pretty little church sitting a little way back from the road, which I hadn't noticed on my up there. There are lots of pretty churches in Iceland - everywhere! - but I particularly liked the shape of this one, called Stóra-Dalskirkja.
The rain I'd seen in the distance seemed to have moved east, so I managed to avoid any rain the whole day. I drove back down to the ring-road, then turned left to continue my journey, next stop Dyrhólaey. I didn't stop at the usual spot by the stupid bra fence to see the rocks - the tide was quite high and light poor, so onwards I drove. It was nice to be back on the familiar road again, passing Skógafoss, the car-park for the plane wreck, Pétursey, the Farmhouse Lodge where I'd stayed a couple of times before. I eventually stopped in a lay-by when I got a nice glimpse of the Solheimjökull glacier spilling over the green hills to the north.
I continued on and took the right hand turn down to Dyrhólaey, where they've widened the intersection so it's not as dangerous any more. I decided to drive up the hairpin bends up to the lighthouse, park there and then do a little hike down to the other overlook. The cloud was coming and going and patches of bright sunlight occasionally appeared briefly over a tiny spot in the landscape in the distance. I adore the view of the white waves lapping against the black sand going off into the distance in the west. Using a long lens (and zooming in on the laptop) you can actually see the plane wreck as a tiny white dot on the black sand.
I stopped overlooking the arch and stacks and then continued on along the path down the hill to the viewpoint overlooking the stack on the beach. I noticed a few puffins along the clifftops, but wasn't able to get close as the area is protected. The sea was unbelievably calm, nothing like in the winter when the stacks are relentlessly battered by massive crashing waves.
As I wandered down the hill the sun began to come out more in the distance, first with patches on the hills behind Reynisfjall, and eventually on the landscape in front of me. It was quite striking, and worthy of getting the wide angle lens on the camera for once.
I reached the other headland and had a little wander around. There were also some puffins nesting along the clifftop there, again difficult to see. The beaches were all closed off, and I remembered my first visit there, watching two guys up close to the huge waves, then running as fast as they could to avoid being caught.
I walked back up the hill, passing a couple of whimbrels, as well as the puffins on the cliff and the gannets manically diving.
I took a few more shots of the view from the top before heading off; the light on the water towards Vestmannaeyjar was magical.
Last stop for the night was Reynisfjara, back in my tiny little cabin next to the beach. I nipped in to check in at the farmhouse and had a chat with Raggi the owner. He told me that the Covid-19 cases had increased slightly and as a result they were bringing in a few new rules - masks on public transport (including the ferries) and more social distancing measures. He told me how some of his neighbours in the area were suffering massively, having taken massive mortgages to build new tourist infrastructure (hotels, guesthouses, cabins), but had no safeguards or fallbacks now that their tourism had fallen off a cliff. Eventually I headed down the hill to the cabin; it's always a real pleasure to come back to places I love - it really felt like coming home! I wandered down onto the beach, but the light was fading quickly with no colours to speak of other than a tiny glimpse of orange to the west, just visible under the clouds that nearly covered the whole sky. It was nice to see the wonderful basalt columns again, and this time with puffins above them.
I didn't stay out long, so retired to the cabin and made myself some tuna pasta and drank one of the two Garun beers that I had left over from my last trip. It didn't give me an instant headache this time, which was good. I spent the evening reviewing the photos from the day, listening to the wind increasing outside. The forecast for the following day was utterly dreadful, with really heavy winds and rain all day, but not even the consolation of decent waves, as the wind was coming from the north. At least I'd got the earlier ferry and had made the most of today.
Click here for my blog from Day 4: Exploring Vestmannaeyjar
Click here for my blog from Day 7: Rainy Drive to Stafafell
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