We started our drive back towards the west, headed to Husavik, a good sized and surprisingly beautiful fishing village about half way across the country towards the Westfjords. Of course, when you are driving the Ring Road, you are bound to come across more waterfalls. This is Rjukandafoss Waterfall, just off the side of the road.
Bear in mind that before this waterfall, we saw about 6 or 7 pretty good sized ones that just don’t have names. After awhile, unless it’s pretty impressive, you hardly notice them.
About 90 minutes from Seydisfjordur we arrived at Studlagil Canyon, known for it’s basalt columns. The hike from the parking lot is about a mile. Despite thinking the northern areas of Iceland would be less traveled, this was not the case, and the parking lot was full…but my parking karma paid off and we got there just as somebody was leaving.
Maybe 100 yards from the parking lot you run across Studlagil Waterfall….of course there is a waterfall! Love the basalt columns!
This shot into the canyon would make a great puzzle!
The columns are quite striking.
If you walk far enough you can hike right down into the canyon, but I didn’t want to deal with the crowds, so the photo will have to suffice. This would be an awesome spot for a kayak ride…or an inner tube!
We had to make a diversion to get to the next spot, Dettifoss Waterfall. It was interesting that this waterfall is in the middle of a huge open plain…no mountains in site…yet there is this massive waterfall cutting through this canyon in the middle of it all, with so much water you could see the mist hanging in the air from a mile away! The mist is so abundant that you can barely see the waterfall!
This one definitely deserved videos!
This has to be the waterfall with the most volume of water in Iceland.
Just upstream from Dettifoss is another set of waterfalls. They don’t drop as far as Dettifoss, but there are so many of them in one place it was quite impressive, and worth the extra short hike. This one is called Selfoss.
By the way, we were on the West Side of Dettifoss, where the mist persists. If you want to get up close to the top of the falls, minus the bulk of the mist, you can do so on the East Side, but plan ahead, because you can’t do both without a one hour drive between them.
We drove into Asbyrgi Canyon, but it was late in the day and the end of the canyon wasn’t lit well for photos. The canyon walls are impressive though.
This canyon is better viewed from above. The next photo isn’t mine, but it gives you an idea of what the canyon looks like, and why it attracts so many visitors. If we ever make it back this way this would deserve some more exploring.
We finally arrived in Husavik, just in time to head out to dinner. By the way, if you ever find yourself here, the best restaurant in town is called Naustid. We had the best seafood soup and fish here! Just outstanding! We should have eaten here both nights. Plus, they are Hawaii football fans!
As all small villages do, they have a cute church.
The blue church interior seems to be an Icelandic thing.
We loved how their small grocery store is brutally honest in their advertising of a product.
We didn’t have any special plans here, so we checked out the local Whale Museum.
They had numerous whale skeletons in the museum. This first one is a Minke Whale calf. The naming of the species is interesting. A Norwegian whaler named Miencke mistook the whale for a blue whale, and all his friends and co-workers made fun of his mistake by naming this species after him, and the name stuck.
This is the massive lower jaw of a Sperm Whale. The Sperm Whale is named after spermaceti, which is a semi-liquid waxy substance found in the whales head. This was the primary substance for making candles back in the day, as the spermaceti would burn without making any smoke. Man was I wrong on why it was called a Sperm Whale!
The Blue Whale is the largest animal that ever existed, with evidence of reaching 98 feet long, and weighing 199 tons, the same as the combined weight of the hosts of The View! What an amazing coincidence!
The skeleton is of course the largest they have. They went out of their way to have perfect skeletal specimens of every whale local to Iceland.
These are some of skeletons on display. This is a great place to bring kids!
The museum is showing a shortened version of a documentary that seemed very appropriate based on our recent cruise events. This documentary, “Bloody Tradition, Agree to Disagree”, is based on a 2021 Faroe Islands slaughter of Pilot Whales, which created an international firestorm. Released in 2022, it has received numerous awards. We found it very well done, and educational for us since we just encountered our ship pulling a political stunt in the Faroe Islands by refusing to dock (claiming it was due to weather, but we all know that was bullshit as it was calm). This action was actually based on a Pilot Whale slaughter that happened just a week prior to our planned “arrival”, where the Captain pulled the ship into harbor, spun around a dozen times, and promptly left.
I highly suggest you check out the documentary, despite how dark the subject matter may be.
Here is a shot of Husavik.
One last shot over the Husavik harbor.
Next up, we head further west to the little village of Patreksfjordur, and spend a couple days in the Wild Westfjords!