The Westfjords

We left North Iceland and drove west into the Westfjords. This is the NW corner of the country and lies outside the Ring Road. It’s still pretty isolated to this day, and not visited near as often as the rest of the country.

We would drive up a fjord, only to reach the end, and then drive up the other side, to get to the next one. Sometimes there were churches standing on the coast all by themselves, or with just one or two houses nearby -

Large sections of the main roads were gravel -

At one point we drove up and over a peninsula, and found this sod-roofed structure in the middle of nowhere:

Down the other side of the pass, the blues of the ocean were almost other-worldly…

…and there’s another glacier “up here” -

As we rounded the corner to enter the fjord where we’d be staying for the next few days, there was an awesome cloud layer filling it and lying right on the ocean:

Another church…

I just loved the look -

The town we stayed in, Isafjordur, was quite picturesque -

A very interesting thing in many small towns was the rainbow striped object pictured above on the right.

This was very tough canvas that had air blown under it from 1000 - 2200 every day, for the kids to bounce on like a trampoline. I thought it was interesting that they let it deflate at night…ostensibly telling the kids it’s time to go home. :)

We found an isolated waterfall, tucked into the ravine below:

… that took a little hike to get to. We enjoyed spending a lazy afternoon, taking our time…

… and a number of pictures (of course!).

The next day, I had booked a solo horseback riding tour (Steve is not the horsey type), as my way to celebrate the Fourth of July.

I had a blast! The galloping had me feel like a 12 year old again, when I would ride bareback with my cousin on her horse. The Icelandic horse has a special gait called the “tolt”, that feels like you’re in a rocking chair - it’s that smooth. (again, reminder to open this post in your browser to see the video)

The next video captured our water crossing and breaking into the tolt again -

In case you were wondering, the guide had a GoPro mounted on the back of her helmet.

I’ll close with a hint about the next post -