Category: Iceland

I was on the ferry to Grímsey and around 3 hours later we were almost there. After sailing on the Atlantic Ocean with no land in sight, I could now see the island in the distance.

I could see the orange lighthouse on the south of Grímsey and also my guesthouse was visible as we got close, it couldn’t have been any handier, basically it was just at the top of the pier, a couple of minutes’ walk. 

The guesthouse had a kitchen and a lounge and one downstairs room. All the other rooms were upstairs, including mine and to get to it I had to climb a loft ladder. It was a bit awkward, I climbed to the top of the ladder and my room was just to the left. I had to open the door still standing on the steps and then sit on the floor to get into my room, there wasn’t the space to stand on the floor next to the door as it opened outwards. But it wasn’t impossible. You then dropped the hatch so you could walk across the upper floor and get to the bathroom. There was only one other room occupied tonight, by an American father and son. They headed out to explore and I wasn’t going to be far behind them.

I decided to ditch the winter coat and waterproof trousers and wear my down jacket and leggings so I’d be more comfortable on my long hike. My plan was to walk the perimeter of the island. This route is 6 miles and takes 6 hours, allowing for photo stops and time to enjoy the scenery and the experience of the walk. I had no intention of racing around the island as fast as I possibly could. I wanted to savour my time on Grímsey. 

You don’t need to stay overnight on Grímsey. Most days the ferry stays for 5 hours, so it is possible to get the morning ferry, spend 5 hours on the island and then head back to the mainland in the evening.

Anyone who comes to Grímsey as a daytripper will want to go to the Arctic Circle, so my route was going to take me to the lighthouse which was on the southerly extreme of Grímsey and in the opposite direction to where all the daytrippers were bound to walk. Even those staying overnight seemed to head straight to the Circle, so once out of the village of Sandvik I didn’t see a soul. 

I walked down towards the church, a plain, wooden building just out of the town centre. I walked into the churchyard and up to the door to see if it was open. It was, and to my surprise, it was a shell inside. Lots of pieces of wood and tools, but no seats or anything. It wasn’t until I got back to Reykjavik and went into Hallgrimskirkja, the iconic church in the Icelandic capital, that I discovered why the inside of Grímsey Church was a mere husk.

The original church on Grímsey burned down on 21 September 2021. It is thought that the old electrics in the church were the cause of the fire and from the first sparks, the wooden church was a pile of ashes within minutes. Nothing could be saved, everything inside was completely destroyed.

There was no mention of this on any information boards when I was on Grímsey. I found in general there was a lack of information on the island, but maybe part of the charm was making discoveries for yourself.

However, there was an extensive display in Hallgrimskirkja and as part of the exhibit were 2 bells that Hallgrimskirkja have donated to the church in Grímsey, which will be shipped to the island when the construction is complete.

After the church, I followed the road out of the village and down to the southerly tip of the island. There are a few small islands off the coast of Grímsey, so I stopped and took a photo of those. There was an abandoned house up on the hillside and beyond that was the southern coast and a beach. In the distance the bright orange 9 metre tall lighthouse beckoned. 

I followed the road up to the lighthouse where there was a picnic table and plenty of opportunities to take photos of the lighthouse and the coastline. The bright orange colour of the lighthouse make it an appealing subject in photographs and I used my selfie stick and my tripod to get a few photos with me in them too. I got lots of photos of the lighthouse from different angles and as I followed the path away from the lighthouse, there were some nice shots behind me too, this was the angle where I could get the door of the lighthouse in the frame.

The road ran out beyond the lighthouse and I followed a slightly muddy path along the east coast towards a gate. This is the path less trodden on Grímsey. Most people will walk the west coast both north and south, but not many bother walking along the eastern cliffs, especially not where I ended up walking on the ankle breaking marshland!

Grímsey is pretty flat, but it is higher in the middle and it is a bit of a climb to get to the highest point. As I went through the gate, at first I didn’t realise that I had managed to leave the hiking route behind as I followed the coast.  But as I picked my way along the marshy terrain, taking care with every step as I was never quite sure how far my feet were going to sink into the undergrowth, I worked out that somewhere I’d gone wrong.

I slowly followed what looked like a sort of path. I couldn’t get lost, I was on a tiny island, but I had read not to get too close to the edge of the cliffs as the ground had become unstable because of burrowing puffins! There were no puffins around in August, they had left the island about 6 weeks ago, but their empty burrows could still be a possible hazard.

Gradually the path seemed to take me a little further away from the cliff edge and I began to climb towards the middle of the island. As I climbed to the highest point, I could see the main hiking trail. I wasn’t sure exactly where I’d gone wrong, but I was grateful to be back on a path where I could walk without testing every step to see if my ankle disappeared into the spongy brush.

I continued to walk towards the northern part of the island and to the Arctic Circle. As I walked further along close to the eastern shoreline I saw a huge hill in front of me. I hoped I didn’t have to climb that. It did look pretty steep. Was this the most northerly point of the island? Would I have to climb this enormous hill to get to the Arctic Circle?

I consulted my map and was relieved to discover this was not the most northerly part of then island. The path veered off to the left, but there seemed to be a more minor path straight ahead so I decided to follow that. This was my second mistake of the day.

It soon became clear that I had followed another unofficial track that I shouldn’t be on and was once again picking my way over the potentially ankle breaking marshy tundra. 

I could see the official path over to the left and made the decision to cut across to it in the most direct way I could as I couldn’t see a way round to it if I carried on straight ahead. I most definitely shouldn’t have been walking here, but if I turned round I would have been following a track I shouldn’t have been on either, so I didn’t see that it made much difference.

This was the only time I actually saw anyone on my lonely hike, a couple with a little girl who were walking back to the village. Testing every step, it took me less time to get back to the hiking trail than I anticipated and with relief I resolved not to take any more detours. 

Once I rejoined the official trail I could see the most northerly section of the island and the sphere ahead which was the marker for the Arctic Circle. 

Grímsey is very strange when it comes to the Arctic Circle. There are 2 Arctic Circle markers, one by the airport which is in the wrong place and the other is the concrete sphere on the northerly peninsula. Neither of them have any signage that state this is the Arctic Circle. At the airport there is a signpost with signs pointing to various places around the world and the distance it is to them, but nothing that says Arctic Circle.

At the sphere there is nothing at all. No signpost, no information, absolutely nothing.

In fact the only place where you see the words Arctic Circle are on a signpost on the road to the airport pointing that the Arctic Circle is in the direction of the airport. So there’s a sign pointing in the direction of the Arctic Circle but nothing to indicate you have reached the Circle. 

Maybe the residents thought the sphere needed no explanation, why else would you put a concrete sphere on the island far away from all the buildings of the village and the airport? The concrete sphere could only mean that you had reached the Arctic Circle.

I stopped to take a lot of photos of me at the Arctic Circle. This was me crossing the Circle in country number 6 out of 8 and I had a marker to commemorate it, even if it didn’t say Arctic Circle on it. I even looked on the sphere to see if there was any sort of inscription carved into it, but found nothing. 

Despite there being no bold “Arctic Circle” proclamation, I took lots of photos and then continued on the path. I was going to walk right to the northern tip of Grímsey. It was getting later now, but I had food at the guesthouse, so I didn’t need to worry about the restaurant being open when I got back and this far north in August, I still had plenty of daylight left. 

I walked to the end of the path and looked around trying to work out which particular point was the northerly tip of the island. I consulted my map and went as close to the edge of the cliff as I dared, set up the tripod to take more photos and then decided that was enough. I’d noticed there was a bit of a hill to climb to get back to the village on the west coast path and it was going to take me another hour if I carried on taking photos.

This hike had already taken 5 hours, not that I hadn’t thoroughly enjoyed it, apart from the bits where I’d had to pick my way over the marshy ground, but Grímsey was a place that I really loved.

I got a stunning photo of the sun starting to sink in the sky by a cove. I couldn’t get down to the cove, but that didn’t matter, the view from this location was amazing.

By now I was getting cold and tired, so I reduced the number of photos I took as I continued down the western coastline. However, as I got close to the airport, I couldn’t resist walking over to the signpost indicating the distance to various destinations around the world and taking some photos there. Then it was the final haul back to the guesthouse for something to eat.

The next day, I had until 2 o’clock before I had to catch the ferry back to the mainland, so I decided I was going to go back up to the Arctic Circle and the northernmost tip of the island one last time.

I called at the signpost again and took a few photos and then stopped at a place with a view of the cove and the northern peninsula that I’d missed out last night because I’d had enough. I got some beautiful photos from there and took more at the spot where I’d got my sunset photo the night before.

Then I went back to the sphere and took yet more photos and finally to the most northerly point and got another set of photos.

I’d pushed the time as much as I could, I now had to walk back to the village. If I had time I could grab something quick to eat from the restaurant before getting on the ferry.

I knew I had enough time that I didn’t need to walk at breakneck speed, so I enjoyed my hike and the view as I headed back to the village.

I had enough time for a piece of hot apple and caramel cake in the restaurant. It was very nice. I regretted not setting off on my walk earlier and getting here earlier to savour the food, but never mind.

I bought myself a shot glass to celebrate my time on Grímsey and no doubt at the airport on the way home I would buy something to fill it! 

Now it was time to say goodbye to Grímsey and I really had loved it here. It’s definitely somewhere I would go back to if I had the opportunity, next time I would plan things better. If I went again, I would also go when the puffins were there, it would be wonderful to see them.

However, Grímsey was very quiet when I was there and I had loved that about it too. That was because it was low season now, it was getting colder and the puffins had gone.

When I had been considering travelling to Grímsey in either June or July during puffin season the guesthouses were both sold out on some days and not just on Summer Solstace like you might expect. So there would certainly have been more people about. Having said that, my guesthouse had 6 rooms and the other guesthouse was a similar size, so it wasn’t like there would have been no room to move.

I think even at its busiest time, I could probably have done much of that hiking route in the south and be on my own for most of it. And I’m almost certain I could take a wrong turn across that marshland and have an isolated spot on the island all to myself.

I travelled to Grímsey in August 2023.

I got the ferry from Dalvik to Grímsey. A one way ticket costs 4,000 ISK which is approximately £25. During the summer there are ferries on Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. They all depart from Dalvik at 0900h. They return from Grímsey at 1400h, 1600h or 1700h depending on the day. Tickets for foot passengers can only be booked online through the Road Administration website.

I stayed at Guesthouse Gullsol on Grímsey, which is just a short walk from the harbour. A one night stay in a single room with a shared bathroom cost £56. I booked this through Expedia.

I stayed at Hotel Dalvik on my return from Grímsey. A one night stay with a shared bathroom cost £46. I booked this through Expedia.

The minibus from Akureyri to Dalvik costs 2,280 ISK each way which is approximately £14. Advance reservations are not needed, payment is taken on the bus. The bus runs every day except Saturday.

I flew to Akureyri from Reykjavik Domestic Airport with Icelandair. The flight time is 45 minutes and a return ticket cost me £210. I booked this directly with Icelandair.

There are several places to stay in Akureyri. I am not detailing the accommodation I used in Akureyri as I would not recommend it.

On this trip to Iceland, I was determined to cross the Arctic Circle as I have an ambition to cross the Arctic Circle in every country in the Arctic.  In Iceland, this meant travelling to the island of Grímsey.

I had quite a few difficulties getting to Grímsey as I didn’t have a car, so I’m detailing my journey and the problems I encountered in this first part about the island of Grímsey in the hope that it will help you avoid the same pitfalls.

Most people who go on holiday to Iceland never venture further than Reykjavik with maybe a day trip out on the obligatory Golden Circle tour. For someone who likes to discover new things, Reykjavik is rather dull these days.

I journeyed into the suburbs on arrival in Reykjavik to check out the art installation Höfuðstöðin, which was well worth going to. It was also very off the beaten track, bus to the outskirts of the city and then a 15 minute walk alongside a stream to a building in the middle of nowhere.

The art installation consisted of 3 rooms, starting off in darkness with artificial fur in dark purples, blues and greens, leading to a larger room with bright and vivid coloured fur against the wall and hanging from the ceiling and finally a smaller room with mostly white fur with a few pastel shades thrown in. It was like a dreamscape. I took a lot of photos, mostly undisturbed as there were only 2 other lots of people who came in to look while I was there. It took me a lot longer to get there than to walk around, but it was still worth the effort of the journey.

And now I was heading up North, just like I did 9 years ago when I went to see the powerful waterfalls around Myvatn, like Godafoss and Dettifoss. That time I had driven up there around the ring road. Now car hire was so ridiculously expensive I had decided to fly to Akureyri. I couldn’t face 8 hours each way on a bus. Akureyri is apparently very busy these days too, although I wasn’t sure how busy a town of around 20,000 could be, there wouldn’t be enough accommodation to support too many tourists.

And on Wednesday I was sailing up to the island of Grímsey, the only place in Iceland to cross the Arctic Circle, a tiny and remote outpost with just 2 guesthouses. I imagined it would be impossible for Grímsey to be crowded. I would easily be able to find a spot to myself. Some people didn’t stay overnight, I was staying 2 nights. Probably far too long to stay there, but I was going to properly explore the island.

Northern Iceland is a deserted outpost without the infrastructure to support the increasing number of tourists, particularly from the cruise ships that are now frequently docking in the port. 

I flew to Akureyri to find that the airport bus was no longer running, despite the fact that there were more than enough people landing and in need of transport to the town to make it worthwhile. This meant the arriving tourists were fighting for the few taxis and when they were all gone I had to phone for one to come back for me.

Things didn’t improve when I got to Akureyri. Despite my “guesthouse” room, which resembled a hospital ward, being large and clean, the shared bathrooms were appalling. In both bathrooms, the shower doors were hanging off their hinges which meant the doors didn’t close and water went all over the floor, which basically made them unusable. In one bathroom there was a huge hole in the ceiling above the shower. On further inspection, the bathrooms on the floor below had shower doors that weren’t broken, so I simply used them for my stay. But as accommodation in Akureyri was scarce, it was at a premium, so I was paying £123 a night for the pleasure of staying in this, let’s face it, hostel, with shared bathrooms with broken showers. I wasn’t impressed.

Worse was to come. I had read on the internet that buses from Akureyri connected to the ferries going to Grímsey. This turned out to be a lie. They did no such thing. There was a bus just after 8 in the morning which got into Dalvík at 8.51 where the ferry to Grímsey departed from at 9. But the bus stop wasn’t at the dock, it was a 15 minute walk away. Who had organised this timetable? Why not have the bus leave a bit earlier so people could use it and comfortably catch the ferry? There were no buses later than 3.30pm and the earliest the ferry ever docked was 5pm. So no connecting buses on the return journey.

I went to tourist information to try and work out what I could do about this. It was established that I could probably get the bus on Wednesday morning and make the ferry, it was a shorter walk than 15 minutes apparently and the driver may be kind and drop me off close to the dock. So even though I panicked it may not work out, I decided that was what I was going to have to do.

I rang the local taxi company to possibly pick me up at the bus stop in Dalvík to take me to the dock. They said the bus driver should drop me at the dock and they would contact the ferry and tell them I was arriving by bus and they should wait for me. I really didn’t like all these ifs and buts and relying on bus drivers to drop me at undesignated stops and ferries having to wait, but I didn’t really have much choice. 

Now I had the conundrum of what to do when I came back from Grímsey. There were no buses, so I had to do something else. I could overnight in Dalvík when I got off the ferry on Friday and get the bus the next day to Akureyri. That was when I spotted my next problem. There are no buses on a Saturday. Was I back in the Dark Ages? What the hell kind of place has no buses on a Saturday? So now I had more rearranging to do.

There was accommodation in Dalvík on Thursday night. But that meant I had to change my arrangements on Grímsey and also on the ferry. I was already past the date where I could change my accommodation on Grímsey free of charge, but I thought it was worth a phone call and the owner of the guesthouse agreed to let me change my reservation to one night without charge.

The ferry was never full, so I knew I could get back to the mainland on Thursday, but again, it was worth a phone call to see if I could change my ticket or if I had to buy another one. If I had been in Egypt I wouldn’t even have bothered asking, when I’d been in Egypt and bought the wrong ticket by mistake, there was no leeway, I had to buy another ticket.

However, in Iceland, especially in Northern Iceland, they are rather more relaxed and even though I hadn’t made a mistake in my booking, they were quite happy to change my reservation for free, they weren’t even particularly interested in the reason. I think even if I had just changed my mind for no good reason, they would have let me change my ticket for free. So the laid back attitude in Northern Iceland does have some benefits. Now all I needed was for the stars to align and for me to catch this ferry to Grímsey on Wednesday.

I tried to enjoy my day on Tuesday, but it was difficult not to think about all the obstacles that faced me the following day and so I never really relaxed and I didn’t sleep well either.

If I had realised what a nightmare it was going to be getting to Dalvík on the morning of the ferry crossing, I would have booked to overnight there the night before as well as the day of my return to Dalvík. Certainly I would advise anyone without a car to travel to Dalvík by bus the day before and stay there overnight, so you don’t have to rely on the kindness of the bus driver to drop you by the ferry or panic about the bus being late.

I was up early and at the bus stop over half an hour before the bus was due. As I crossed the road to the bus stop, the pedestrian crossing was on red, but I crossed the road anyway, you needed binoculars to see the nearest cars which were in the distance, stationary at the next set of traffic lights. A local man at the other side of the crossing didn’t cross on the red light and as I crossed against the light, he told me it was red and called me crazy. Had the distant cars been speeding towards me with Nigel Mansell behind the wheel, I might have needed to worry. Since they weren’t even moving I was in no danger. 

When the bus arrived, which was actually just a minibus, I asked the driver if he could drop me close to the dock as I was trying to catch the ferry to Grímsey. He said he should be able to do that for me. It was hardly the most affirmative sentence I was hoping for, but I assumed that if he wasn’t prepared to drop me near the dock he would have said no. There were 2 women who also got on the minibus and were going all the way to Siglufjördur, the ultimate destination of bus 78. So I wasn’t going to be inconveniencing anyone. No one else was going to Dalvík to catch the ferry to Grímsey. Presumably because they had realised the buses were useless and they had decided to overnight in Dalvík to be on the safe side. 

I didn’t enjoy the drive to Dalvík, I was constantly looking at my watch, wondering if I’d catch the ferry or not. The driver first pulled into the petrol station, the official bus stop in Dalvík and picked up a waiting passenger. We were a bit early and I wondered if he would wait until 8.51 before departing, but he didn’t, he set off straight away and then he dropped me within spitting distance of the ferry. He pointed out the ferry, all I had to do was walk down some steps, across a road and I was at the ferry. I had made it!

Now I really could relax and enjoy myself. I was going to Grímsey!

The ferry crossing was 3 hours and I went to the upstairs lounge where there was plenty of space and put my rucksack down and then I went up on the open air top deck. I had assumed that the ferry crossing would be quite cold. In fact, despite it being August, Iceland was pretty cold, so I had brought a winter coat with me as well as a waterproof and my down jacket. I had deliberately brought my big suitcase and my small suitcase, so I had plenty of space for all my stuff. The main reason for the 2 suitcases was so I could leave the big one behind in Akureyri and just take the small one with me for the 2 nights on Grímsey. It turned out I was now only having one night on Grímsey, but as I was staying in Dalvík on Thursday night, I was still going to be away for 2 nights. 

It was quite cold and windy on the ferry crossing so I was pleased I had the winter coat on. First off we passed the island of Hrisey which is very close to the mainland and has a settlement in the south. I had no desire to go to Hrisey. The main reason I was going to Grímsey was because I have an ambition to cross the Arctic Circle in every country that crosses the Arctic Circle and island of Grímsey is the only place in Iceland that crosses the Arctic Circle. If you stay on the mainland you won’t cross the Arctic Circle. Crossing the Arctic Circle in Iceland would be my sixth out of eight countries that cross the Circle.

I took photographs of Hrisey as we passed and then the last photos of the mainland before it disappeared from sight and we headed into the open waters of the Atlantic. With no more land visible until we got close to Grímsey, I retreated to the lounge and fell asleep for an hour or so, which I needed after the lack of sleep for the past couple of nights.  When I woke up we weren’t too far from Grímsey and I went up onto the top deck again to take photos of the island as we approached. 

I could see the orange lighthouse on the south of Grímsey and also my guesthouse was visible as we got close, it couldn’t have been any handier, basically it was just at the top of the pier, a couple of minutes’ walk. 

Despite all the odds, I had made it to the island of Grímsey. Now my adventure to cross the Arctic Circle in Iceland could begin.

I travelled to Grímsey in August 2023.

I got the ferry from Dalvik to Grímsey. A one way ticket costs 4,000 ISK which is approximately £25. During the summer there are ferries on Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. They all depart from Dalvik at 0900h. They return from Grímsey at 1400h, 1600h or 1700h depending on the day. Tickets for foot passengers can only be booked online through the Road Administration website.

I stayed at Guesthouse Gullsol on Grímsey, which is just a short walk from the harbour. A one night stay in a single room with a shared bathroom cost £56. I booked this through Expedia.

I stayed at Hotel Dalvik on my return from Grímsey. A one night stay with a shared bathroom cost £46. I booked this through Expedia.

The minibus from Akureyri to Dalvik costs 2,280 ISK each way which is approximately £14. Advance reservations are not needed, payment is taken on the bus. The bus runs every day except Saturday.

I flew to Akureyri from Reykjavik Domestic Airport with Icelandair. The flight time is 45 minutes and a return ticket cost me £210. I booked this directly with Icelandair.

There are several places to stay in Akureyri. I am not detailing the accommodation I used in Akureyri as I would not recommend it.

I was really looking forward to my day exploring the Snæfellsnes peninsula with my Icelandic friend.  In Western Iceland there were 3 peninsulas, the West Fjords in the North West, the Reykjanes peninsula close to Reykjavik in the South West.  Snæfellsnes was the peninsula in between.

There are a few things that Snæsfellsnes is known for and the most famous is Kirkjufell Mountain, one of the most photographed sights in the whole of Iceland.  Snæfellsjökull National Park forms the tip of the peninsula, the preservation of the glacier the primary reason for National Park status.

However, one of the most interesting things to me was the initial drive onto the peninsula.  This is basically a desert.  A huge expanse of mostly flat land, covered in snow at this time of year, with craters of extinct volcanoes dotted around it.  On a clear day such as this, the craters were easy to see on this desert plain. I hadn’t seen this side to Iceland so far, I was impressed.  But I’ve always loved this type of Arctic terrain, so it wasn’t surprising I was enjoying this scenery.

We stopped to see Bjarnafoss, translated as Waterfall of the Dead.  I think the intention when we stopped was that I would just take a photo from the car park, but eager to get a better view I galloped off down the footpath to get a good angle for photographs.  I didn’t walk to the bridge because I could see it was still icy, but I still got a good view from the observation point. 

As we drove on, my friend told me about Iceland’s first and only serial killer, Axlar-Björn. If you need an illustration of how little crime there is in Iceland, you may be interested to know that Axlar-Björn was born in the 16^th century and Iceland hasn’t had a serial killer since! Axlar-Björn owned a farm and offered the medieval equivalent of a farmstay to travellers.  Unfortunately, many of the travellers never left the property, he murdered them with an axe and stole their clothes, money and horses. He confessed to killing 9 people, although he is believed to have killed double that number. He was caught when he tried to kill one of his siblings. The sibling managed to escape and reported Axlar-Björn to the authorities. The first murder victim had been buried in the cowshed manure pit, the rest had been thrown into a leech filled pond. He was sentenced to death and executed near Hellnar in 1596.

My friend also recounted a tragic tale about a couple who died in a car crash just before they got married.  I asked him if he knew any happy stories before I was completely depressed.  But actually there was no way I was going to be depressed on a day like this, driving the perimeter of the peninsula, enjoying the spectacular scenery of Snæfellsnes. 

We continued out onto the peninsula, away from the volcanic craters and towards the coast.  Our first stop was in Arnarstapi where there were dramatic views of the cliffs and the coastline below. We went to look at the Atlantic coast where you get a stunning view of the Hellnar Arch, an arch shaped sea stack being battered by the powerful waves of the Atlantic Ocean.

We came back past giant half-man half-troll, Bárður Snæfellsás, who has been immortalised in a lava rock sculpture. He gave his name to the peninsula, Snæ means snow in Icelandic.

Briefly the saga of Bárður is that he sailed from Norway with his family in the 9^th century and landed at Djúpalón Beach. In Arnarstapi, Bárður’s eldest daughter, Helga is pushed onto an ice floe by her cousins when they are playing by the sea and disappears into the fog.  Helga lands in Greenland, but her father thinks she is dead and kills the cousins who pushed her onto the ice floe by hurling one into a ravine and the other off a cliff.  Bárður announces he has killed the two young men, but his brother is out at sea and does not learn the news until he returns.  The two brothers begin wrestling and destroy much of the surrounding landscape as they have the strength of giants.  Bárður wins the fight, but regrets killing his nephews and wounding his brother so he goes to live on the glacier as a protective spirit for the people living on the peninsula.  I sat on his knee for a photograph and then we moved on. It was too cold to hang around for long today.

We pushed on to the village of Hellnar and here we could get a good view of Snæfellsjökull Glacier.  My friend drove down to the harbour, and because he was relatively local, as in Icelandic, he could get away with it and from here you could see the glacier and the coastline and the village church.  It made for a beautiful photograph.  We walked along the coast path for a short time to look at more sea stacks.

The tip of Snæfellsnes Peninsula is designated as Snæfellsjökull National Park. Hiking trails run all through the park, both coastal paths and trails to get closer to the glacier. On a reasonably warm summer day, it would have been pleasant to do a longer hike, in freezing temperatures with icy blasts of wind, a long coastal walk would have been pretty miserable.  I would have to come back one summer to do some longer hikes.

However, my friend did want to take me to the nearby beach and I had no problem with a short walk to Djúpalónssandur, a beach where the remains of a shipwrecked fishing trawler from Grimsby can be found. There used to be a fishing village here, but these days this area is uninhabited.

We hiked down to the beach and indeed there were lots of rusty pieces of iron scattered all over the beach. The Epine GY7 was wrecked on the beach in March 1948 during bad weather and only 5 of the 19 crew survived the shipwreck. This was a tragic reminder of how perilous it is to work as a fisherman. Even today it is a dangerous job where you’re working in cold conditions on rough sea.

There was a whale out at sea, you could see the faint water spouts as it breathed, but it was too far away to be able to see clearly.

From the beach if you turned away from the Atlantic, there was a perfect view of Snæfellsjökull, the glacier the National Park was created to protect. 

We headed back up the beach and on to our next stop, a volcanic crater.

The volcanoes on Snæfellsnes are extinct.  But there are lots of craters and you can drive right into some of them, like the Hólahólar volcanic crater which is ruled by invisible elves.

I had to get out of the car and have a photo taken in this crater, but even though I was inside the crater and not on an exposed upper ridge, it was very windy in here.  It was almost like I was inside a wind tunnel and I was struggling to stand upright for the photos. Was it the invisible elves making mischief because we’d disturbed them by driving into the crater? 

My Icelandic friend is one of the huge number of Icelanders who believe in elves, so if they do exist, they should have seen him as a friend. As a Yorkshire lass who has been on many ghost tours and never seen, heard or felt a thing, I am a little more sceptical about the existence of these hidden people, so I was more inclined to think it was just the wind. Even so, going inside the volcanic crater was one of the highlights of my day, so maybe it was the influence of the elves that made me love this spot so much.

We ruled out the idea of climbing to the upper ridge of any of the volcanic craters on a day of practically gale force winds. Even when it’s relatively calm, the couple of times I’ve been to the top of a crater (in Death Valley and South Australia), it’s been very windy on the ridge, so on a day when I could barely stay upright inside the crater, I would have no chance of surviving a ridge hike.

We passed a few of these volcanic craters with paths to the ridge as we drove out of the National Park and headed towards the place everyone who goes to Snæfellsnes comes to see and one of the most photographed spots in Iceland, Kirkjufell.

First of all we made our way to Ólafsvík, passing waterfalls made of icicles that had formed at the side of the road due to the well below freezing temperatures of the past couple of weeks.

Ólafsvík has a church with unusual architecture, the first modern church in Iceland dating from 1967 with a separate bell tower.  Ólafsvík is one of the larger towns on the peninsula and as well as a modern church it has a monument to the fishermen who lost their lives at sea.  The Icelandic population live near the coast and fishing has always been an important part of the culture.  It still is in Ólafsvík, the town has a harbour, although there wasn’t going to be much activity from there at the moment, since the boats were frozen in the harbour as the water had turned into solid ice.

After a short stop in Ólafsvík, we drove on to the most visited part of the Snæfellsnes Peninsula, Kirkjufell.

Kirkjufell translates as Church Mountain. The iconic photograph is of the mountain with the small Kirkjufellsfoss waterfall in the foreground.  So I was surprised just how close the mountain was to the sea.  First of all we went to the beach so I could see the mountain from this angle and it was a view I’d never seen in a photograph.  There was a huge amount of ice on the stony beach, so I didn’t venture too far onto it.  In fact, I wanted to capture the ice in my pictures, so I needed to find the best position to do this.  I did really like this view.  I also enjoyed it because it wasn’t crowded, although that might have also had something to do with the fact it was now getting quite late in the day. 

After the stop on the beach we went to the car park to do the short walk to view the mountain from the side of the waterfall.  The mountain had no snow or ice on it, even in these cold temperatures, the exposed rock was grey and the surrounding vegetation was brown at this time of year, but the waterfall was frozen solid and most of the river was covered with thick ice.  I took some photos, but it was getting cold by now, the light was fading, so we made our way back to the car park.

We still had a 2 hour drive to get back to Reykjavík, but I had now seen most of the peninsula, so I was content to sit back and relax and enjoy the scenery as we headed back to the city.

I travelled to Iceland in March 2023.

I flew to Iceland with Easyjet who have daily flights from Manchester to Keflavik in the winter.

Luckily I have an Icelandic friend with a car, who generously took me on a day tour of the Snæfellsnes Peninsula. If you are not fortunate enough to have an Icelandic friend as a driver and guide, there are bus tours from Reykjavik that go to Snæfellsnes.

Read about my nights out to view the Aurora in my other post about Iceland.

Northern Lights in Iceland

You expect Iceland to be cold. The clue is in the name.  But actually it’s not as cold as you might think. Apart from this March when Iceland was experiencing record breaking low temperatures. It was worse at night.

However, night was the time to go aurora hunting and following a successful sighting of the Northern Lights with my first group on Friday night, my 3 nights off between tours offered much promise with forecasts of high activity levels and high visibility.  It started out with me just going out stargazing the first night, which turned into an amazing display of Northern Lights. 

The activity of the Northern Lights is based on a solar cycle which lasts approximately 11 years and in the middle of this is the solar maximum where you tend to see the aurora more often and the activity is stronger.  As we head towards that solar maximum in approximately 2 years’ time, now is a good time to see the Northern Lights if the conditions are right. 

I’d recently seen the Northern Lights in Norway, now it looked like I would see them in Iceland once again too.

The group went home on Monday and I ventured out with my Icelandic friend on Monday night to Þingvellir. We were going stargazing as the sky was amazingly clear, especially out near the National Park. I saw Venus and Jupiter and could pick out the Plough and Orion, but I did struggle with other constellations, the sky was just so full of stars and I’m no astronomer. But the sky was full of stars and not being able to identify the constellations didn’t stop me appreciating the beauty.

The Northern Lights hadn’t really come out by midnight, but we decided to give it another 10 minutes. It was a good call. Within that 10 minutes we were rewarded with some Northern Lights streaking across the sky.  My phone camera picked up the green colour, the problem was it was perishing outside tonight! I couldn’t take photos with bulky gloves on, but as the Northern Lights were quite faint at this point, I needed 8 seconds exposure to pick them up in photos. I could only manage to take 2 photos before my hands turned into blocks of ice and I had to put my gloves back on before my fingers fell off!  Then I ran and sheltered in the car for a while.

However, as the activity built up and got stronger, I only needed 4 second exposure and now I could even pick up red coloured Northern Lights in the camera, which is a pretty rare sight. It was very special to pick up that colour and I’d certainly never seen it before.

I read an article that red Northern Lights had been more visible this year in February and more were to come. In an ideal world, an even more vibrant red colour like I’ve seen in photos would have been great, but realistically those images had probably been photoshopped and as it was, I was thrilled that I had seen some red. It had been a real treat. Tonight had been almost perfect.

If Monday night was almost perfect, Tuesday night was nothing short of spectacular when the aurora activity went through the roof. Tonight we only needed to drive out just past Elf Rock in Hafnarfjörður and face the open Atlantic because the activity was so strong even the distant city lights couldn’t diminish the display.

Everywhere you looked was the Aurora Borealis, completely surrounding us and above us. If the Northern Lights faded in one part of the sky they would build up in another, there wasn’t one moment when something wasn’t going on somewhere in the atmosphere.

Tonight the Aurora was strong enough to be able to pick up the green colour with the naked eye, although it came out much brighter in the photos. The Northern Lights swirled, they danced, they lit up the sky, putting on a show for a couple of hours.

While it was still cold tonight, the high activity meant that long exposure didn’t work in photos, the stronger the lights, the shorter the exposure time. Only having 2 second exposure meant I could get a lot more photos before my hands turned into ice cubes. Consequently I got 300 photos, although at least two thirds of them could be immediately discarded and then I just had to look at the others and decide which were the best.

On Wednesday night the Aurora Borealis came out to play again, this time quite early. We headed into a wooded area tonight to watch them, even my Icelandic friend didn’t know where we were going, we just followed the light, and once again we were surrounded by the Northern lights in every part of the sky and they were dancing.

In fact, tonight they were dancing a lot more than the previous night, even though the colours weren’t as strong. It was possible to pick up a hint of other colours, pinks and reds again.

I have seen purple Northern Lights in Greenland when I went snowmobiling in the wilderness at night, but never managed to capture them on camera, so that’s my next task. You can sometimes pick up blue as well. I want all possible colours in my Northern Lights photos. 

All in all, the Aurora Borealis had been nothing short of spectacular for 3 nights in a row. I had been very lucky.  Even my Icelandic friend said they weren’t often as strong as that.

The new group was arriving tomorrow. I hoped they would be able to see such a magnificent display. Unfortunately, Aurora had obviously got tired with all that dancing she had been doing for the last 3 nights and now decided it was time to have a rest. On Friday night there was a faint display, on Saturday night, we saw absolutely nothing. Aurora had gone to sleep for a while.

I considered myself very fortunate to have seen such magnificent Northern Lights for 3 nights in a row and I hope that I will manage to see more amazing displays next winter as we head closer to the solar maximum. 

I travelled to Iceland in March 2023.

I flew to Iceland with Easyjet who have daily flights from Manchester to Keflavik in the winter.

Luckily I have an Icelandic friend with a car, who generously drove me out to the best locations within an hour of Reykjavik to star gaze and view the aurora. Otherwise any hotel in the city can make you a reservation on one of the many Northern Lights tours that take place every night (weather permitting) during the winter months.

Read about my day exploring Snæfellsnes

A Day on Snæfellsnes Peninsula

Check out my post about viewing the Northern Lights on my snowmobile outing in Greenland.

Viewing the Northern Lights by Snowmobile