Iceland (part III)

Tsiklonaut

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<- coming from Iceland (part II)



There's a non-marked (not even an F-road) track going around one of the fjords via Lokinhamrar. It was an amazing experience and could be only done at the time of low tide. It was very rocky, with patches of boulders the size of human head.


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Abandoned family house in the treacherous West Fjords.

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Abandoned houses from 1970s still standing strong today in harsh climate conditions.

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The Bakkafjall and Burfell of the other side of the bay reminded us of the buried space ship from the movie Prometheus.




The King Crowned
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Prometheus Chair
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The trip took us most of the day, and by the end of it we landed in Þingeyri, in a camping just next to a swimming pool. In Iceland, every town and even larger villages have their own swimming pool, normally with natural hot pots, and they serve as important places to socialize. So we went for a dip to soothe the aching muscles and it worked really well. Interestingly, although Iceland is otherwise crazy expensive, swimming pool tickets cost even less than in Estonia.

Next morning, we got on our way quite early and managed to take a side trip to Sæból in the light of the rising sun. The village itself wasn’t exactly spectacular, but the descent into the broad, green valley where it sits was truly amazing.


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On the right you see collected "firewood" (Iceland has NO forests) you can use heating your home. Turns out the careless and wasteful "spill" from massive Siberian forest cutting where they transport the tree logs via floating them with rivers, the "missing" logs go into the North Sea and some of them drift to the Icelandic coast, you'll see tons of siberian logs in Icelandic coast, especially in the north coasts, often in unbeleavable amounts - miles long beaches full with logs that you can't even step normally. Iceland is just a tiny spot in the Arctic Ocean hence you can only imagine how much "lost" wood there must be in other places. With ongoing global warming and utterly wasteful resource usage - a man is his own enemy.




On the way to Ísafjörður, which with its population of 2600 people makes for the largest town in the West Fjords, we could enjoy stunning landscapes over wide altitudes and settings:



Calm
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Sick of the cold, we decided to head back south. The ride down the road alongside the seemingly endless fjords took us ages, going back and forth as the road embraced the sheer rock and steep hillsides. The sights were decent nonetheless.

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Just after we’d settled at a campsite in Drangsnes, we headed a few hundred meters down the road where we’d noticed some open-air hot pots. There were basically three small tubs (with different temperature) on the roadside just by the ocean, open 24/7 to anyone craving for a dip:


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If you're lucky you can spot whales on the same bay.

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Next morning, we got up early again – the winds had been ferocious all night long, and we were eager to leave for some quieter place. Before heading on south we made a detour north towards Norðurfjörður some hundred kilometres away, but turned around quite soon – the road was in a pretty bad shape, and the gusts of wind just kept on coming at us, so we figured that the battle was not quite worth it.


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Headed back and soon inland, where we decided to try the spectacular Route F35 (Kjölur).


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There was quite a lot of riding through windswept rocky desert, until we arrived at the geothermal area of Hveravellir. There the Earth’s crust got exposed:


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-> go to Iceland (part IV)



Cheers,
Margus
 
Simply stunning pictures.
 


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