For the first time, we had a sunny morning when we woke up. I was up at about 6:30 AM, mother nature was calling so that meant a trip to the bathhouse, about 75 feet from our campsite. It was not a large bathhouse there were two toilets and two sinks in one small building, and then the two showers in another small building right beside that.
It is never crowded that early, so it is nice. The bathrooms have been the biggest adjustment for us, but that is camping.
Stephanie slept in as usual, and I made my coffee and worked on the blog posts. It is the best time for that, it is quiet and peaceful, and I am an early riser anyway. Today, we set a target time of 9:00 AM to be ready to leave the campsite, so at about 8:00 AM, I woke up Stephanie so we could eat breakfast and take care of some daily activities before we left. We make sure our water bottles are full and then we have to lock all of the drawers in our “kitchen”, so they do not open while we are on the go. The drawers have special latches on them for that purpose. Right before we leave, we un-hook the electrical cable and put it in its storage bag.
By the time we left, other campers were either already gone or in the process of packing up. We had to sit for a while with the engine running so it would heat up and help defog the front window. There is usually some moisture on the inside from us being inside for the night. While that was happening, we went through the first couple of stops on our itinerary for today, which was to head north to the Westfjords, which is the north-west part of Iceland that is sort of a peninsula.
There is an area called Latrarbjarg on the very western tip of one section that is a habitat for puffins, and that was part of today’s travel plan. It is also the most western point of Iceland.
Our first stop was a small geothermal spring called Hellulaug, which was about an hour away. It is right on the coast. We headed off after the windshield finally cleared of the inside fog. Right before we arrived, we stopped at a N1 Gas Station to fill up. We were right at half a tank of fuel, and that is our set limit for adding fuel so we don’t get in a situation where we are running low and can’t find fuel. Gas stations are not that prevalent, especially in the more remote areas like the Westfjords, so we want to take the opportunity when we can to fill up.
The station we stopped in also had the new automatic payment machine and the old one, so we just did the same thing as last time, used our non-PIN credit card in the newer machine, and it worked. Our only issue is that we don’t know how to use our N1 discount key fob that we were issued by CampEasy. On the old machine, there is a special spot that is designated for the discount card, but not on the newer machine, it only had a touchless card reader and that did not get us any discount when we tried it today.
We added about 42 liters of Diesel Fuel, and that was about $90.00 US. Maybe we don’t want to fill up any lower than half a tank, we would get fuel price sticker shock. Fuel is 322 ISK (Krones) per liter.
The GPS told us to turn off on a small dirt road not far from the N1 Station. Initially, I missed it it was so small so we had to find a place to turn around, and then we turned into the small road. The GPS said we were at ur destination, but we did not see any thermal pool right next to the coast. There was a small building a little farther down, but it looked like someone might live there. it looked like a small cabin, and we were not comfortable going there. I guess we should have at least walked closer to it to see if it was something associated with the thermal pool, or we just had bad directions. We had decided we were not going to take that much time to sit in the pool anyway, we had about four hours of drive time today to see the things we wanted to visit.
We headed out, glad there was at least enough room in a clearing by the small road for us to turn around.
The next stop was Rauðsdalur, which is a beach area that is also a campground. We had selected it as an alternate campground for the route when we planned the counter-clockwise direction, but of course, it was not going to be used for this direction of travel, we had not gone far at all yet today. It was a nice beach, and there was a large grassed area right on the beach for camping and a small bathroom right on the beach. We walked down to the ocean and took a few photos. It certainly would be a scenic camping area, but we did not see anyone actually set up on the side of the road next to the beach.
Next stop on our list was another beach called Barðastrandarsandur. It was not far down the road and we easily saw the turnoff for the access. There was a large gravel area behind the dunes, not really a parking area, just a natural gravel area that could be used for parking. We got out and headed to the beach, which was much larger than the beach we had just visited. No one else was in sight. It was another yellow sand beach and was really nice and peaceful. We did not stay long, but were glad we had stopped.
We got back into the camper and headed out for our next destination, which was called Rauðisandur Beach. Stephanie pulled up some of the reviews on Google and many said it was a narrow and steep road to get from the main road to the beach. We decided we had already seen two beaches today, so based on that and the difficulty of getting there, we opted to pass. Plus, it was on a road that was “in and out”, so it would take some time to get to it and back to the main road.
The next area was Látrabjarg, which is far out on a peninsula and is supposed to be a good bird-watching area, especially for Puffins. It was the farthest we would go on this road today, and it was also an in-and-out route. On the way there, we saw some spectacular scenery and we mostly drove along the coastline. The road often headed up some pretty steep inclines of 12-15 degrees, and the views were spectacular. Unfortunately, there were not a lot of areas to pull off the road for photos.
We did find one large area off the side of the road and pulled over to make some lunch and enjoy the views. While Stephanie made lunch, I flew the drone and took some videos. There was a tall waterfall off in the far distance, and we could also see the ocean below in the opposite direction. We were at the lunch spot for about 25 minutes before getting back on the road to Látrabjarg.
It was not far before we got to a crossroads that we would return to after we went to Látrabjarg as we continued on for the day. From here, the road was all dirt/gravel, with a speed limit of 80 kph, just 10 kph lower than the asphalt road. It was in pretty good shape, but it was really hard to maintain the 80 kph speed limit most times. The GPS said it was over an hour to get to Látrabjarg, but it was only about 40 km in distance.
We did see the turnoff for Rauðisandur Beach and there was also a campground on that road that we had as an alternate to the one we planned on stopping at later today.
There were times when the road was along the side of some cliff areas, and it was really narrow, we would need to be careful if any cars came from the opposite direction since we needed to find an area we could pull over on to let them pass. Luckily, we did not have any car traffic in the narrowest parts, but there were a few cars heading back in the opposite direction.
It was a long drive out there, but we finally got to a small village just a few kilometers from Látrabjarg. There were a couple of small hotels and other rental properties there, basically out in the middle of nowhere. We assumed these were for serious bird watchers, who else stay this far out. Before we actually got to Látrabjarg, there was a small parking lot with some bathrooms near the beach. from there it was a steep drive up to the parking area for Látrabjarg. We were really surprised at how many vehicles and people were already there, we had not seen many cars for the past hour as we headed there.
It was really windy, so we had to add layers and then we packed our camera gear in backpacks and headed up the walkway to the top of a cliff. It was a pretty steep walk, and there were some areas with very irregular rock steps, it was not easy. However, it was very scenic at the top, and there were a few areas where you could see the side of the cliffs and all of the birds nesting, mostly seagulls.
Stephanie had brought some binoculars, but she could not see any puffins. We had read that they are usually out hunting food in the ocean during the day, and are only at their nests in the morning and evening. Of course, it was not that time currently, it was about 3:00 PM. The top of the area we were out was at least 100 feet or more to the ocean below, and it was scenic, especially on a sunny day like today. We set up the tripod and took some photos, but it was really windy and cool from the wind.
We headed down the walkway and steps to the parking area, and we were both pretty tired and leg-weary afterward. It was pretty steep and hard to walk on the irregular steps, especially downward.
We packed up and headed down the road to the area where the restrooms were located and stopped for a potty break. This area was also where there were some remnants of a fishing village, mostly some of the lower wall sections at ground level.
After the break, we headed back about 10 km to another beach area, mostly to stop for Stephanie to take a picture of a small church there. There are a lot of really remote churches in Iceland, and most are all painted white and have red roofs, this one was no exception. We wondered who really attends these remote churches, and who is the preacher that comes this fsr out or lives this fsr out.
We began the long drive back on the gravel road to the crossroads where we would get back on the main road. There were a lot more cars heading out to Látrabjarg and we had to pull over onto a wider area at times for them to pass. We had by far the largest vehicle, most people were in smaller cars. The cars here must really take a beating from being driven on these gravel roads. At times, there are a lot of potholes and washboard areas, especially on the steeper slopes.
On one of the most narrow parts, we saw a full-size tour bus approaching and had to find somewhere where it was large enough to pass. We were going slowly to pass, but the bus never slowed down, I guess they were on a schedule. It was amazing that something that large was driving out here, we wondered if it was going all the way to Látrabjarg.
We made it back to the crossroads and turned back onto the asphalt road to head to a town called Patreksfjörður. Our campground selection was there, as well as one of the Vínbúðin liquor stores, we needed to stop there for some supplies. We had a hard time getting to the Vínbúðin store because of some road construction that had one section of the road closed in the town. Once we finally arrived, we made our purchases and then headed to the campground.
We arrived at the campground and it was not impressive at all. It looked like a gravel parking lot, and there was a building there that was supposed to house a kitchen and bathrooms, as well as a pool. None of it looked appealing at all. We found another campground about 20 minutes away, and it looked much more appealing, so we headed there. The reviews of the first campground looked OK, it was nothing extraordinary, but it looked worse in person than the reviews made it out to be.
The other campground was called Tálknafjördur, and it was in the town of the same name, in the next fjord over from where we were.
We drove over and found the campsite on the outskirts of the town. It is located next to a public swimming pool and sauna area, and that was where we checked in. We added electricity and the total cost for the night was 6,500 ISK. However, that also included a separate fee of 1,500 ISK for using the washer and dryer they had. It was only about 4:00 PM, and since it was early, we decided we would take advantage of the washer and do some laundry.
We did not opt to pay for the pool, which also included showers, we did not think we really had the time since we were also washing clothes. We pretty much had our choice of camping spots, so we selected one in a corner next to the electric plug-ins. It was fairly windy here, so we parked close to a large hedge, hoping it would block some of the wind.
A little while later, a family moved in two spaces down. They were in a minivan and had a fairly large tent. The man put up the tent while the kids played on a rubber inflated mat that was pretty large, and acted like a trampoline. It was kept inflated by a pump we could hear, and finally figured out what was. The kids were a little loud at times but were just having fun. I guess we did park next to the play area, so we should have expected it. They were actually closer to a lot of other campers while on the trampoline.
Tonight, our plan was to cook chicken quesadillas. We had purchased some pre-cooked chicken and were planning on using it tonight, and one other night as an addition to our tortellini and alfredo sauce. We diced up the chicken and wrapped it in foil to heat on the grill because we needed the two burners in the camper to cook the black beans we were also having, and for the pan to heat the quesadillas. We were not sure how well the gas was going to be for toasting the quesadillas, we had not cooked any on gas before.
We got the black beans heated first and covered them with foil, we needed the space for the larger frying pan to heat the quesadillas, and there was not enough space for both. The chicken was heated, so we were ready to build the quesadillas. We were also having salsa and tortilla chips. Stephanie had accidentally picked up cheese-flavored tortilla chips, but luckily, they were not too flavored and were actually good.
It was one of our better meals so far.
When we were finished, we headed over to the campground sinks to wash our dishes. It is easier than using the limited camper water, and there is always hot water for washing dishes at the campgrounds.
We used the restrooms while we were at the building where the sinks were and we were ready to pack it in for the night. Stephanie worked on her Facebook post while I worked on the blog.
Soon afterward we called it a night. It was almost 11:00 PM, and we had a long day. It was still light outside, and we actually got to see some fantastic colors from the setting sun
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