When we planned our trip to Iceland, there was one thing I really wanted to see. Puffins. We were going to be in Iceland in the late spring, and according to all the books, that’s prime Puffin time. The Puffins nest, usually until some time in July, and then they go back out to sea. I’d read that the two best places to see the Puffins were the Latrabjarg Cliffs and the Westmann Islands, so we had a decision to make. Both locations have unique scenery to offer — among other things, on the Westmann Islands, you can see evidence of recent volcanic activity (it’s called the Pompeii of the north with houses half-swallowed by lava) and Latrabjarg offers beautiful fjords, plus, it’s the westernmost point in Europe. Because we were in Iceland just before the start of the official tourist season (June 1), the ferry schedule to the Westmann Islands was limited and I was afraid it would take too much time out of our schedule, so we opted to drive to the Western Fjords and hope we could find some puffins at the cliffs.
After a big breakfast, we were on the road by just past 8:30 a.m. (so much for my planned early start!) I only got a few pictures on the drive north, but this was our first glimpse of mountains, as it had been so overcast while we were in Reykjavik.
After about 2 1/2 hours of driving, we stopped at a grocery store/quick mart/gas station for a quick break. It was our first sighting of yarn sold in a grocery store.
Back on the road, we had our first sheep sighting. (Can you see the little lamb in the middle?)
Because it was late spring, almost all the sheep had babies which was a really fun thing to see. It seemed like about 90% of the babies were twins and most of the rest of them were singles. We did see a few triplets too.
![Thimbleanna: Iceland](../"../../images/2013/Travel/Iceland0131.jpg" "Thimbleanna:Iceland")
Before long, the roads turned to gravel and the views of the sea were just gorgeous.
We arrived at our hotel, Hotel Flokalundr, around 3:30 p.m. Hotel Flokalundr is a charming, very comfortable hotel with a gas pump out in the middle of nowhere. We grabbed a quick bowl of soup and a sandwich and then hit the road — there was much to see in this area and we only had the evening.
This is the road just after you pull out of the parking lot headed north. You can see, just at the top of the road, where it turns to gravel.
Our first stop was Dynjandi Falls, about 45 minutes from the hotel. The drive to the falls was pretty unpleasant — mostly due to driving too fast on the rough roads. It was well worth the trip though — the falls are just gorgeous. We spent a lot of time there and hiked up to the bottom of the largest set of waterfalls.
This is the view when you have your back to the falls — beautiful!
After Dynjandi Falls, we backtracked on Hwy 60 and then turned off on Hwy 63 toward the little fishing village of Bildudalur.
Here’s Bildudalur from the across the water.
We arrived around 8 p.m., so we took a few quick pictures and stopped at a very small restaurant. They were out of most things on the menu so we had soup and sandwiches or hamburgers and fries. It was delicious and it warmed us up. Bildudalur is a charming little town with a very pretty church. We could also tell that there was some industry here and the waitress said that they have a small plant that extracts calcium from seaweed. We had seen big nets out in the bay and asked about those too — she said they were salmon farms.
After Bildudalur, we had nice paved roads to take us up over the mountain to the next bay. Looking back in the picture below, Bildudalur is the little white spec to the left of the inlet of water.
Back down at sea level, driving along Patreksfjordur, we had a whale sighting — very exciting!
And at the very inside tip of Patreksfjordur was this pretty shipwreck. Gardar BA 64 was built in 1912 and beached here in 1981. It’s the oldest steel ship in Iceland. While I was taking lots of pictures, the family said they saw more whales!
We pressed on — it was really late now and we still needed to get to the cliffs.
The beautiful golden sand beaches — unusual because most beaches in Iceland are black sand.
See the road in the picture below? Latrabjarg is just around the bend. Getting very excited by now!
The population in this entire area is only around 500 people. It is said that the weather is very unforgiving, and unfortunately, we got a nasty taste of it. By the time we arrived at the cliffs it was after 10 p.m. and it was freezing cold (temps in the upper 30’s F) with high winds. It. was. miserable. Sadly, the winds were so high, we didn’t really feel safe walking along the cliffs. I did sit down at one point and inch to the edge but there wasn’t much to see. And we certainly didn’t see any Puffins. What a HUGE disappointment! Even the puffins didn’t want to be out in this miserable weather. (There was also speculation that not many Puffins had arrived yet, due to the VERY late and cold spring in Iceland this year.) We didn’t hang around very long and the picture below was about the only picture I took. If you inch up to the right of the kids, by the gray rock, you could lean over and see the ocean below — or look straight ahead and see the green cliffs that appear in the background of the picture. (That should have been where we spotted puffins, but no such luck!)
We headed back to the hotel, very sad. Well, at least I was very sad. The rest of the family was probably just really annoyed that I dragged them to the end of the earth for nothing! Back along Patreksfjordur, we stopped for a minute at the Egill Olafsson Museum. It was way too late for it to be open, but there were a few things outside to see.
The last little stretch of road before our hotel. This photo was taken after midnight — just to prove that it never got truly dark while we were there!
