We stayed three days in this awesome little guesthouse, Vin Lonid, in Seydisfjordur, one of the fjords in the eastern part of Iceland. If you find yourself in this region, I highly recommend staying here. The place is wonderful, as is the owner!
Make sure you opt for the upstairs balcony room! We had an excellent view over the fjord and the surrounding area.
The entire village is gorgeous, particularly with the backdrop seen here.
One thing we found out right away, you can’t do your laundry in the adjacent campground…the guy that runs it is a total asshole! You need to go over the hill to Eglisstadir, where they have a campground that treats you like you aren’t crap. Moving on…but not moving on.
The day we arrived the village was quiet, which is why I was able to get this photo with nobody in it. This is THE sight to see in Seydisfjordur…the entire city roots for the Hawaii Rainbow Warriors football team and goes out of their way to show their support. Hell, I’m a huge Cal fan, but I don’t slather my driveway with Blue and Gold! These people are ALL IN! I have to admire that!
The next day there were three cruise ships in the harbor, and the place was over-run…literally! The Hawaii football fans were out in force, all over the street taking photos! I need to find out who the marketing guy for the University of Hawaii is…maybe he can help out Bud Light?? Regardless, he is doing an incredible job! The church at the end of the road is quite cute on the inside. We love our blues!
As you leave the town to head over the mountains, which we did multiple times, you run across Gufu Waterfall. Finally a short name for a waterfall! Not sure what it means, but even if it’s a nasty slur of some type it’s an improvement!
Here is the slow motion version. Love this slow motion stuff!
Just adding a little beauty to put it all in perspective.
So because of the MAJOR ASSHOLE at the Seydisfjordur campground, we ended up doing laundry at Camp Egglisstadir, where everybody is welcome. Imagine that? Something a little village east of here could learn a thing from, but I digress.
As we were doing our laundry, we found the Reindeer Path, where you were guaranteed to see a Reindeer!
Ok, not exactly the Reindeer we were hoping for. At least he stood still for the photo!
Once we had some clean clothes to continue the trip (it was getting dicey), we headed to yet another waterfall! The below is a lower level of Hengifoss Waterfall, and is yet another one with basalt columns throughout.
Hiking up to the top of Hengifoss waterfall is steep, but well worth it. The geological lines of red (iron?) are just amazing! A very cool waterfall…very Jurrasic Park!
More slow motion!
If you take the trail back down on the east side of the canyon you get a nice shot of the basalt columns. These spots are so Iceland!!
Kim took a picture of me getting the shot of the basalt columns.
The next day we made the drive to the farthest you can go (in a car) in the northeast of Iceland, Borgarfjardarhofn (you’ve gotta be kidding me with this name! Just call it Puffin Central and be done with it!). On the way we passed this cross on the side of the road. This cross marks a spot of numerous medieval tragedies on the old road built right into the “scree” of the hillside. All of the tragedies back then were attributed to a nuisance creature, half man and half beast, named Naddi, who lived in a sea-level cave beneath this slope.
In 1306, an exorcism was performed on the site, and this cross was put up. The cross bears the inscription ‘Effigiem Christi qui transis pronus honora, Anno MCCCVI’ – ‘You who are hurrying past, honour the image of Christ – AD 1306’. The cross has been replaced several times since, but the current one still bears the original inscription. No word on if the exorcism reduced the number of tragedies going forward.
A little further towards our destination we stopped at Lindarbakki, an original turf house built around 1900. This is the only one remaining in the area, and the last inhabitants lived here up until 1973. It is now a museum. I’d hate to have to mow the roof!
The church next door is cute, but it was filled with a bus load of tourists listening to an Icelandic singer that shouldn’t give up his day job. See that walker outside the door? Yeah, must be a cruise ship bus!
We then visited Puffin Central! Here is the site from the parking lot…across the small harbor. Looks pretty unassuming, right?
Once you start walking up the steps, you are quite literally blown away at how many Puffins there are.
In an area that is maybe an acre total, there had to be 2,000 Puffins! The colony in this location is said to have a total of 50,000 Puffins!
They were literally everywhere you looked, with hundreds and hundreds of them flying in and out of the site at any given time!
Here is some video. You can hear them making a weird moaning sound, that kinda sounds like a chainsaw in the distance. I had no idea they made sounds! I think it’s only when they are in large groups, as we’ve never heard them make sounds when there were only two or three.
Here is a slow-motion video that shows several of them coming in for a landing. These things can barely fly compared to normal birds.
More Puffin photos, just because. The background made it cool…so there’s that.
On the way back we stopped at the top of a pass and saw the ocean stretching away….when we passed this spot a few hours earlier it was obscured by heavy fog. The weather changes quickly here!
Back in Seydisfjordur, all the cruise ships were gone, so we had the place to ourselves once again.
The beautiful little blue church that has been in who knows how many photos! Go Rainbow Warriors!
One last night shot of Seydisfjordur from our balcony. Yes, this is as dark as it gets in July. Just a gorgeous spot!
Next up, we head to Husavik, Iceland, and see….you guessed it…waterfalls!
