This is my last day in Iceland, and what a crazy day it turns out to be. It is about 225km from Vik to Keflavik, which shouldn’t take me that long. Along the way I stop at Skogafoss waterfall, and the tripod makes it out of the boot of the car for the first time on this trip.
I also decide to go to the Westmann Islands on the ferry, to see if I can improve on the puffin photographs I took yesterday at Ingólfshöfði. The next ferry from the mainland leaves at 1pm, and returns from the islands at 5.30pm, with nothing in between. It takes between 30-45 minutes each way on the ferry, so I won’t be back on the mainland until about 6.20pm.
It’s a busy port on the Westmann Islands today – the Veendam (looking a bit rusty along the waterline) is anchored just inside the harbour, and the Discovery is docked along the wharf.
I manage to get the last seat on the Ribsafari boat trip. Whilst it’s a great jet boating style experience, and you do see puffins and nesting kittiwakes, it’s also a quite wet experience. I learnt early in the trip to keep the DLSR protected behind me and the seat mount, so that it was only me that copped a saltwater drenching. I should have taken the Go Pro Hero in the water proof casing, but here are a couple of shots that aren’t too bad. It’s not the right trip to do to see puffins up close.
I was lucky to get on the 2pm Ribsafaris, as by the time we return at 3pm, it is starting to rain, and I think the rest of the afternoon’s trips are cancelled as it rains heavily enough to take refuge in a café for an hour.
By the time the ferry arrives back on the mainland at about 6.15pm, the GPS tells me that I won’t arrive in Keflavik until 9pm, which puts paid to doing anything else along the way. As I approach Selfoss, police are directing traffic down an alternative route that will add another 40 minutes to the drive.
By the time I reach the outskirts of Reykjavik, it is raining, and simply gets worse by the time I reach the Hotel Berg in Keflavik. Over the last 10 days, the contents of my suitcase and camera bag have migrated throughout the car, so that I have cameras in the passenger seat, wet weather gear in the rear seats and stuff strewn all over the boot. So at 10pm I’m outside the hotel in another howling gale and rain trying to pack my suitcase and camera gear for a 7.45am flight the next day.
I’m glad I insisted on Hotel Berg rather than a return to the Grand Hotel in Reykjavik. The room and bathroom are beautiful, and the interior of the hotel (even though I didn’t get to enjoy it) also beautiful. It is popular as a small boutique hotel near the international airport (roughly a 10 minute drive).
All up, I think Iceland needs about 3 weeks to see properly, particularly if you need to wait the weather out. I haven’t seen much of the south-west coast (it is the most heavily touristed area), which I think needs about 3 days in its own right and the Westmann Islands need at least a couple of days on the islands.After 9 days on the ring road, I feel like it’s too much driving and not enough ‘doing’ for that kind of timeframe. I would have liked to have gone riding on the very striking Icelandic horses, but a couple of friendly ones by the roadside today is as close as I’ve gotten.
