Day 22 – The Peninsula

I am not used to getting up to an alarm anymore. I trudged out of the tent at 8am and packed up. After a quick breakfast and shower, I met up with Remi at the clubhouse.

Remi** had a bunch of sights to see planned for the day, which was great. I am used to “figuring it out” as I go along, but a planned itinerary sounded like a welcome change.

First stop was the Rotten Shark Museum in Bjarnarhöfn. The dish is a delicacy in Iceland, with the Greenland Shark actually being a poisonous fish. Apparently, after fermenting the meat for 6 months and letting it rot, it then becomes edible (!), albeit in small quantities.

The museum was more of a hut. The guy running it was friendly but a little odd, possibly eaten one-too-many fermented sharks. He asked us to try a piece. Both Remi and I declined. It looked less than appetizing. And it smelt like rotting fish. Not wanting to smell like fish for the rest of the day, we gtfo’d.

Next stop on Remi’s agenda was Kirkjufellsfoss, the most photographed waterfall in Iceland.

 

I wasn’t really sure what made this waterfall more popular than all the other ones around. Seemed on par beauty-wise with the rest. Anyway, Remi was super excited and I didn’t want to dampen his enthusiasm.

I realized later that this was the first waterfall he had seen in Iceland. That explains it.

Next stops were for lunch, a quick look at a quirky hostel in Rif and an abandoned church somewhere in between. Remi had mapped out every single point of interest along the way. I can’t say I was excited about everything on there, but the kid was so excited, I just shared in his enthusiasm.

I decided to pick the next activity. A hike through the lava fields of Dritvik. The hike starts off along a black sand beach, walks through some incredible lava rock formations, and ends at a point called “the troll cave” where trolls dwell.

Last stop on the agenda was exploring the caves of the glacier. We came to a turn-off near Arnarstapi where a gravel road leads up to the mouth of the glacier. In usual style, I tried to will the Spark up the gravel road… and as expected, it didn’t work.

It’s hard to tell from the picture, but the incline is about 15-20 degrees. The car made it about a kilometre in before it started sliding out. I stalled at one point, and the car slid slightly backwards.

Remi wasn’t looking too happy. I suggested we hike up instead, and he jumped out the car pretty fast. It was just as well, there was no way this car was gonna make it up.

We found some pretty awesome caves on the hike up. A little information board told us that these caves were used in the past as shelter by the Vikings. They used to hear voices coming from the innards of the cave, and attributed it to the elves that lived in there.

The caves did create some weird acoustic effects. Deep echoes, strange pitches. We hooted and hollered a bunch before moving on.

At some point along the hike, we decided to head back. The hike wasn’t as much a hike as walking along a road, and it didn’t look like it was leading anywhere significant.

Time to find a campsite. This part of the peninsula has few official campsites, and we decided to do some wild camping. A bunch of driving and getting lost later, we settled upon a small forest towards the eastern part of the peninsula. It had trees !! which was a big appeal after a month of no trees.

We settled on a spot in between the trees. Cooking up a storm for dinner, we explored the forest a bit, chatted up about Iceland, Quebec and other places.

It had been a great day. I thought about what made it so awesome while sleeping. I hadn’t done anything particularly extraordinary or thrilling. I guess experiences in life are just better shared with another person (even if you just met them :))

** Remi is an 18-year old just-finished-highschool guy from Levis, QC. He took 3 weeks off between his school and summer job to travel to Iceland. He plans to hitch rides around the country and camp. Adventure starts at an early age for Quebecers.