Who could have predicted that a place called the Westfjords would have many, many fjords? And that driving around many, many fjords takes many, many hours? Someone should really warn me about these things, but I get ahead of myself.
We left Snaefellsnes Peninsula this morning in a typical way for our two days there – right where we were staying and parked was dry, but on both sides of the town, you could see rain bands. It had the happy effect of throwing a rainbow across the iconic mountian Kirkjufell, which we could see from our room and as we loaded the car. The trip out involved going the same way we came in, over a mountain pass. The views were better today, but the top was still rainy and cloud-bound.
We had a choice on how to go out of the peninsula – we could take the dirt road due east, or drive south on the paved road back to Borgarnes before turning north again to head to our destination of the day, the remote Westfjords region. We decided to play it safe, and we took the paved way, even though it may have added thirty minutes or more to our trip. Dirt roads in Iceland can be anything from great and fast to rutted and slow. We knew we had plenty of dirt roads ahead, so we took the road more traveled. It also allowed us to eat at the bakery in Borgarnes one more time, so that was a bonus.
We both had decided to go to the Westfjords independently during the planning process. Mer wanted to go because Rick Steves covers it and it sounded wild and far-flung, and I saw it on a map and thought, “That looks cool!” When I found out there was a major waterfall overlooking a fjord in the area, I was sold.
The thing about being far-flung is that it takes time to get there, sort of. It is no problem getting to the edge of the Westfjords. It is getting into them that takes time. If you skip the ferry, which we did since it wasn’t leaving until 3:00 pm, then you have to take the one road in, Route 60. Route 60 weaves in and out of eight different fjords and over several mountains, and has the exciting bonus of being a dirt road for about twenty miles. Iceland, being a manly country, doesn’t usually believe in guardrails over silly things like steep drops into fjords, so it makes for some…interesting…driving. When there ARE guardrails, worry.
We got past the eight fjords, and, tired of the boring paved road, Meredith had me turn to stay on Route 60, which again became a dirt road, this time with the added bonus of being under construction. Once past the construction, we turned down, or rather, up and down, Route 63, which was a dirt road in and out of fjords and over mountains, but with the level-up challenge of usually being less than two lanes wide. Natives in four-by-fours do like to keep as close to the 80 kph (48 mph) speed limit as they can on these roads, so I was paying more attention to the driving than to the astonishing scenery around me. I was impressed and moved by whatever happened to flash in front of me, except when the road commanded all of my attention. Meredith loved the drive for the scenery.
The result of all of this out-of-the-way driving was that we stopped in a small parking lot next to three small buildings and an outdoor pool that overlooked the mountains and a fjord. The property had a natural hot spring, and the soak-loving Icelanders had built a pool that was free to use. You didn’t even have to shower before using it. We changed and got into the pool, which was about the temperature of warm bathwater. You wanted to keep as much of your body submerged as possible, as the winds were blowing and were cold, but that added to the experience. We soaked in the water and the scenery as well for some time. There was also the natural spring itself about a hundred yards up the hill, so we went to sit in that, despite getting chilled some from the wind in the process of walking there.
It was worth it – the natural pool was sandy and really hot, much hotter than the swimming pool. There were two women soaking their feet there, and as we got in, a man and woman came up to soak their feet as well. The two women were from Germany and were at the tail end of their trip, and the man and woman were originally from India, but now living in San Francisco, and were at the end of their trip. We sat around and swapped stories, all while enjoying the hot pool. When we all got up to leave, Meredith and I took another dip in the pool to rinse off any sand, and we dried off and changed back into our clothes.
We drove on very pretty roads, which shorty turned back to paved, all the way to the small town of Patreksfjordur. We had looked into staying there while planning the trip, but everything was booked. So we went on around another fjord, along Route 612 west (unpaved), until we got to our hotel. By then, I was very weary and hungry. In addition to the to the road conditions, it had started to rain lightly. I was relieved to get out of the car.
The hotel is surprisingly big, with an annex and a small campground. Only about four or five miles away is the westernmost point of Europe, which also happens to be a puffin breading ground. We have been told these puffins are pretty fearless, letting people get to within a few feet of them. My guess is the hotel is here to cater to bird watchers. We were going to go out to see the puffins tonight, but the weather is poor and is forecast to clear by tomorrow evening, so we delayed the trip. We had an excellent supper and got settled in our own nest for the evening.