Matt decides to outsmart Iceland and puts on the spandex shirt he brought as an underlayer. THAT will keep Matt warm. Iceland turns down the heat….

The day ultimately ended up being good, weather-wise, but the morning was windy, cold, raw, and in some places rainy. The first two stops we made were really cold, seeps-inside-you cold. And I was wearing five layers. In July. After the second stop, the day started to warm up, and the winds dropped down to more normal, so we were fine, but I originally thought we were in for a long day.

Which was my day to be in charge. We took our time getting ready this morning and had a long breakfast because we were waiting for the local supermarket to open at 9:00 to see if they had a SIM card for a phone and a box of tissues. In an Icelandic town of 900 people, think less supermarket and more large convenience store. They didn’t have a SIM card; no surprise. They also didn’t have tissues. We thought maybe the attached pharmacy might have tissues, but they didn’t open until noon. We decided to make do with a roll of toilet paper we snagged from our room.

My days tend to be a mixture of planned sightseeing and “where does this road go?” whimsical moments. Our first stop was whimsical – a pull-off on a high point of the road going west. The views of the next town and surrounding countryside were great, but it was the first of our two really cold stops. The second was a somewhat-planned stop in that I had seen it online and filed it away. When I saw the pretty red church situated in a mountain-surrounded field, I knew I wanted to stop.

So I turned down the dirt road to go it. The car was immediately dive-bombed by an arctic tern; they get aggressive during mating season. I bumped along with the road getting rougher, and I decided this couldn’t be right. I stopped and asked a man who was taking pictures of wildflowers how to get to the church. He said it was the next road. The tern dive-bombed us again on the return drive.

The church was worth a stop. There were good views in all directions, even with the low-lying clouds covering the tops of mountains and, sadly for us, the nearby glacier. All day long, we would get small glimpses of the glacier, but never the whole thing. We started calling this phenomenon “The Dance of the Seven Clouds.” Anyway, we took our time and some pictures at the church, which was the last really cold stop of the day.

I had wanted to see a small (by Iceland standards) waterfall named Svodufoss. It is “only” 35 feet tall, but is situated well with the glacier above it and mountains around. Iceland seems to be stepping up both the environmental as well as the tourism game by installing plastic pavement grids filled with crushed stone to serve as paths for visitors. That makes hikes dry and easy, and protects the fragile plant life next to the paths. The locals had installed one of these at Svodufoss, as well as a stone wall/bench area with a stone patio that allowed us to sit and watch the falls, which we did for about ten minutes.

We made a snack/pit stop at the cute cafe we had eaten at yesterday, and then went back into the Snaefellsjokull National Park on the western part of the peninsula. We went down a one-track paved road that became an okay dirt road that became a rough dirt road. At the end of the road, separated by a mile or so, are two colorfully orange-painted lighthouses. Both are surrounded by lava fields, but the first one we went to is about thirty feet tall and has the mountains as a backdrop. I really liked that one. The second lighthouse is pint-sized, being maybe ten feet tall, and on the edge of a grassy area. In the middle of the grassy area is the area’s only freshwater well, which locals used to believe was a mixture of water, holy water, and ale. The well is still accessible for anyone who is interested, but bring a cell phone or flashlight – it’s dark in the mound built over it. The coast at this lighthouse lets you look back east over the rest of the peninsula, which was impressive today as the waves were crashing all along the coast as far as we could see.

A return bumpy trip got us back to the parking lot at the head of the one-lane road, where we parked to see Skardsvik Beach, a rare brown sand beach in Iceland. Most of the beaches are made of black pebbles or sand. I’m not sure where the brown sand came from, but we strolled around the small beach and loved how it was framed by black lava all around.

The day before, Meredith had been in charge and had taken us to the southern part of the peninsula, where we zoomed by two huge sea stacks without stopping. I clearly needed to fix that today, so we stopped by the Gestastofa Visitors Center, which is near the sea stacks and overlooks them (and you can hike to them as well). We used the free bathrooms (no joke in Iceland, where facilities are few and far between), and then walked over to the black lava cliff overlooking the sea (but not the stacks, which are in another direction). Again, we were impressed at the power of the waves crashing into the rocks. We then did walk most of the way out to the sea stacks, but stopped short of them, as we could see them better from a small distance.

We didn’t go far, however. About a mile down the road from the visitors’ center was a cliff overlook that was built (the overlook, not the cliffs) to see the stacks, but also had great views of the nesting seabirds on the cliffs below. It was a great stop; plus, as a bonus, the sun had come out some, so we could shed layers. The glacier was still stubbornly hiding under clouds, but we were warm (I think it was 52 degrees out, according to my car).

I was very proud of Meredith at my last stop for the day. We pulled into the parking lot for the Raudfeldsgja Gorge, and we started the climb up to the gorge entrance, which is a good little hike. The surrounding cliffs and mountains and ocean views were spectacular, so rest stops were never a bad thing. But, once we got to the mouth of the gorge, we found that it was only a few feet wide, all of which were taken up by a shallow stream. And Meredith actually waded it in her new Gore-Tex hiking shoes. I don’t take that for granted. We got into a roofless antechamber of sorts where there was some dry land, but that ended quickly. I scouted ahead to see how hard the hike was, and I turned around when I saw that it involved scrambling up small waterfalls. In the process of my turning around, the water came over the back of my right shoe. Ooops.

We hiked back down and then took the same mountain pass we took yesterday. The top was still covered in clouds, but the views going up were enjoyed by Meredith (who could look around) and by both of us on the way down (when the views were in front of us). We went back to the guesthouse, ate a quick supper, and then took advantage of the lack of rain to walk down to the small harbor of the town so I could see the mountains loom over the harbor and fishing boats.

There are several things to do and places to see here that I would love to have fit in, but they will have to wait. One of the great things about travel is how there is always more to do than time to fit it in, so you always have a reason to come back. That, and sometimes when you are really cold, the sun comes out and the touring goes on.