Snæfellsnes Peninsula

     Today, we left the cute little town of Borgarnes and headed even further west to the Snæfellsnes Peninsula region.  Snæfellsnes is a region known for its dramatic landscapes, and it has an extremely diverse geology containing rock formations from almost all periods in the geological history of Iceland.  At the tip is a national park, capped by drastic sea cliffs, black sand beaches, and lava sea arches.  We decided not to travel all the way out to the tip as we'd seen two other black sand beaches and numerous cliffs on this trip already.  Instead, we headed to Kirkjufell and Kirkjufellsfoss, a famous mountain and waterfall on the peninsula.  It is said to be most beautiful at sunset, so I'll share a picture from the travel group I joined for this trip at the end of my pictures so you can see what we missed by being there in the morning (the picture was taken by a fellow traveler in June).

The teenagers actually voted to head
here instead of another beach.

 

    

      It was a lovely day in Iceland, so we headed back to the center of the peninsula to find Lava Lake.  It's a bit like walking into "The Land Before Time" movie in this part of the land.  We took a good two hour hike trying to reach the actual Lava Lake (you can see the lovely blue lake clearly from the parking lot above), but after jumping about four little creeks, hiking through tall grass (and finding a weird skull), and hopping over the moss covered rocks, we only discovered that we could not see the lake at all.  Haha!  Drew even hiked on a bit to the next hill but said it flattened out and he still couldn't see the back lake.  We hiked back, found a secret waterfall on the way to the camper, and enjoyed our chilly hike despite not actually making it to Lava Lake.

Look closely...Drew is headed to the next hill in the center of this picture!

We decided it is Scrat from the movie Ice Age!

     We ended the day with what will likely be our last two waterfalls of the trip:  Hraunfossar and Barnafossar.  Boy, did we save a couple of great ones for last!  The first, Hraunfossar, was actually a collection of hundreds of smaller waterfalls all dumping into this raging turquoise blue creek.  It was too much beauty for  one photo to capture it all!  Then, up the creek a small hike was Barnafossar, which translates to "Children's Waterfall."  It has a creepy Icelandic legend about two children dying by the falls. Their grieving mother had the stone arch destroyed that once covered the falls so no other children would find an untimely death.  Yikes!  It was a neat point where all the water from the creek above was forced through a narrow point creating some crazy rapids and churning water.  Don't worry, I made the kids stay far back from the edge.  I also loved seeing the lava rock formations at this stop.  The lava once flowed in this canyon, cooled, and created the backdrop for these incredible falls.

     Finally, we headed back to the main part of the island to a city on the west coast not far from Reykjavik which we will explore tomorrow.  Akranes is a small coastal village that has grown a lot in recent years with a booming downtown and vibrant art scene.  We were greeted with another beautiful sunset over the ocean as we parked for the night.  Great news!  Our campground host said the forecast for the northern lights is very strong tonight.  Wahoo!  She even offered to come camper to camper to knock on doors and let us all know when it's happening in case it's later in the night.  How cool is that!  We're hoping for an early show, but we'll just be excited to see them no matter what.  Wish us luck (again!).