{"id":641,"date":"2021-06-19T17:09:17","date_gmt":"2021-06-19T22:09:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/debbiewebbie.net\/blog\/?p=641"},"modified":"2023-12-26T22:09:43","modified_gmt":"2023-12-27T03:09:43","slug":"friday-june-19-day-4-finishing-up-the-westfjords-and-heading-north","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/debbiewebbie.net\/blog\/?p=641","title":{"rendered":"Day 4: Finishing up the Westfjords and heading North"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

Today, we are saying goodbye to the Westfjords and heading to the Troll Peninsula.\u00a0Before we headed out of town Paul got to soak in a hot pot by the sea, just as he had hoped.\u00a0\u00a0He would like to move to Iceland just so he could sit all day in these types of natural hot pots (geothermally heated, no chemicals added, and outside).\u00a0

The town of Drangsnes is situated in a lovely area looking over the sea.\u00a0 Grimsey Island and its famous orange lighthouse were in view out our bedroom window. The snow capped mountains of the Troll Peninsula are off in the distance, gleaming in the long hours of daylight, not unlike a lighthouse.

As we were leaving the town today, we were met by a group of Icelandic horses charging up the road at us. As they rounded the bend a bit more we could see there were cars behind them taking up both lanes of the road.\u00a0We quickly realized this stampede was being wrangled.\u00a0Every time the little herd slowed down, the drivers would honk and the horses would pick up their pace again.\u00a0\u00a0Figuring they were rounding them up to bring them home, we stopped the RV far ahead on the road to give them lots of room to keep them gathered up and not worry the horses and maybe cause them to bolt and scatter. We got some big smiles and waves from the wranglers in the cars as they passed.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\"Icelandic<\/a>\r\n
Some Icelandic horses passed us on the road when being escorted home.<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

So far, the weather has been great for us.\u00a0 Occasionally, a cloud drops an isolated shower of rain or else a mountain top cloud blows some snow on us.\u00a0 Temps have been in the 40 – 50 range.\u00a0 Flowers are blooming everywhere, lupins paint the lower lands with hues of purple, and their heads dance about in the mostly constant wind.\u00a0 The wind speed ranges from a light breeze all the way up to rip yourcar door off if you open it in the wrong direction.

The birds are back and nesting here again so the landscapes are a hive of activity.\u00a0 We\u00e2\u20ac™ve seen so many song & sea birds, swans, and many varieties of geese and ducks, many with little ones in tow. Most of their names are not known to us, but we enjoy\u00a0 watching them all the same.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\"A<\/a>\r\n
Some swans with chicks swimming in a lake.<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

In addition to the surprise horse roundup, we also came upon some seals resting on the rocks of one of the fjord beaches. There were a few babies in the mix and I could see a fluffy light coated one.\u00a0 They were a bit far off, but you could see them pretty well.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\"\"<\/a>\r\n
Some seals and sea birds enjoying a day on some rocks in a quite spot in the Fjords.<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The landscape of the Westfjords started changing as we were driving away from them. The rugged mountains turning to softer ones, with more green pasture land and tilled fields, and the roadways weren’t hugging the sea so closely. However, there were still parts of the road that were hilly and curvy dirt and gravel, just to let us know we were not totally out of the area just yet.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

As we entered the Troll Peninsula, the landscape changed even further. Some fields were so green they reminded us of Ireland.\u00a0 This area is famous for being horse country.\u00a0 It\u00e2\u20ac™s easy to see why.\u00a0 Lovely large valleys surrounded by large dramatic glacial mountains. The fields of sheep giving way to fields of the lovely colorful Icelandic horses. Field after field mares with young foals were everywhere. The little babies scampering about their moms, kicking up their little heals and testing out their legs running as fast as they could across the green fields were really fun to watch.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\"Road<\/a>\r\n
You can see how the landscape has changed. Also I see a bit of rain is waiting for us ahead.<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

While on the way to our next camp site, located in a small town on the coast called Hofsos, we stopped at a famous landmark in the Troll Peninsula called Kolugljufur Canyon.\u00a0 We approached it by traveling down another dirt road and as we rounded a small flowing river we could see a gaping chunk carved out of the landscape.\u00a0 As we drove up to a bridge and we could see the same river flowing along the top of a field.\u00a0 Once in the parking lot near the bridge we could hear the force of the waterfall. The river made a sudden hard left and carved its way between some rocks, fell many feet to create deep blue pools of water a few more falls and finally at some point in the canyon which was out of our eyesight the force calmed down again to something like a normal little river.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\"Kolugljufur<\/a>\r\n
This is Kolugljufur Canyon waterfall which carved out the canyon.<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

We arrived early to the campsite and for a change had some dinner before 8:00 pm, with hopes of catching up on some sleep this evening. But we just heard from our young camp host that this is the best spot he’s ever found for watching the sunset this time of year. Which happens at about 2:00 am.\u00a0\u00a0And here I was thinking we could catch up on sleep. There is a famous Infinity pool here right on the water overlooking the ocean.\u00a0\u00a0I am guessing that’s how the day will start tomorrow morning. Our journey tomorrow takes us into the North part of Iceland.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\"Lupine<\/a>\r\n
We came upon this little Lupin field as we entered the Hofsos for the night. This is about the amount of daylight we\u00e2\u20ac™ve seen until about midnight, when it gets a little bit darker.<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today, we are saying goodbye to the Westfjords and heading to the Troll Peninsula.\u00a0Before we headed out of town Paul got to soak in a hot pot by the sea, just as he had hoped.\u00a0\u00a0He would like to move to Iceland just so he could sit all day in these types of natural hot pots […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":655,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[193,7,115],"tags":[117,126,124],"class_list":["post-641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-193","category-iceland","category-iceland-2021","tag-ring-road","tag-troll-peninsula","tag-westfjords","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/debbiewebbie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/debbiewebbie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/debbiewebbie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/debbiewebbie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/debbiewebbie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=641"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/debbiewebbie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2057,"href":"https:\/\/debbiewebbie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641\/revisions\/2057"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/debbiewebbie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/debbiewebbie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/debbiewebbie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/debbiewebbie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}