Day 6 - Snaefellsbaer Penninsula

Monday, June 26

Day 6

The plan for the day was to drive to the Snaefellsbaer Penninsula, hopefully see fjords and a glacier. The Garmin seems to not be calculating distances/times correctly, as it was supposedly only 140 km away, yet it estimated 3 hours.

The drive out was gorgeous, we were so happy to finally have blue skies! The first excitement was driving in an underground tunnel that was almost 4 miles long! We pulled over often to take pictures since we hadn't had incredibly great scenery up until this point.

It was a few hours before we had the chance to pull over and get out to walk around. This waterfall wasn't all that impressive, but there was a steep, short walk up to see the Bjarnarfoss waterfall.

Just down the road we saw a bunch of parked cars. We all had to use a bathroom and didn't see anything right off the road, but we decided to stop anyway. We were at the "troll cave," known as Rauofeldar Canyon. Another steep and short walk took us up what looked like a crater to a green hole in the side of the mountain. 

Once we got a little closer, it seemed that we could walk on the rocks and go in a little deeper. I could see why a troll would want to live there! Shielded from the weather and wind, the temperatures were pretty mild and it was really neat in there.

A man and woman came in after us and they seemed a bit more adventures and were trying to go further into the cave. Not wanting to die, we opted to go back to the car in hopes of finding a bathroom.

The Garmin kept routing us away from the coastline. We were attempting to get to the Snaefellsjokull National Park to look at a glacier. Where we ended up was a somewhat treacherous dirt road that literally drove us ONTO THE GLACIER. (Shhh, don't tell the rental car company).

The road at the top was closed (thankfully, it was a bit of a harrowing drive) so we just took a selfie with the view of the beach in one and the glacier in the other, before heading back down (to sanity).

Once at the bottom we arrived in a tiny town, Arnarstapi, with one cafe and a food truck. We opted to get our dessert of the day at the cafe - chocolate cake and coffee!

There was a short walk along the shoreline where we got more pictures (still with blue skies!)

We still had not been to the actual national park, so we kept heading north. We somehow missed the turn, but it did lead us down a cool road where we were able to walk down to another black sand beach at Djupalonssandur.

We finally found the turnoff for the visitor center, and a few more pictures.

By this time, the clouds were rolling in (again) and we were all getting cranky, so we started the drive back. After about 40 minutes of driving I had to pull over and have Mo drive because I could barely keep my eyes open. We decided we needed to have ONE dinner that was not Domino's. We drove into the city and went to "American Bar." We spent $40 on a junk beer, pretty gross nachos, and a kid's cheeseburger for A. The service was terrible and it took over a half hour just to get our bill. Not impressed.

It was almost 8 by the time we got back to the house. After checking us in for our next flights, I realized that we were only allowed ONE carryon/personal item. Uh oh. That meant that we had a whole hour to try to pack all of our junk into just one bag.

Steps - 14,114

To be continued...