Iceland, Day 7

We’re starting to get into the home stretch here. Today was all about sightseeing. We started out with visiting the Hvitserkur rock formation. It looks like a dragon drinking from the sea. I found it very unique and intriguing.

After Hvitserkur, we headed towards Kolugljufur Canyon, then Hvammstangi (fisherman village), then Kirkjufell Mountain.

After these small stops, we made our way to Djupalonssandur, which is a beach where an old shipwreck took place (shipwreck pieces are still there to this day and are to be left undistrubed, which was nice to see people respecting that). We also had a close encounter with an arctic fox. The fox had a fresh kill (bird) in its mouth when it appeared on the path we were walking down. There was a group in front of us and when the fox spotted us coming down, tried to turn around and saw the other tourists, so then turned around again before taking a small ridgeline just a couple of metres away from us to go over the lava rock and back to wherever its hole was located. The arctic fox is grey due to the weather and location that they reside in, but is extremely rare to spot as it is and definitely made up for the lack of northern lights that we have been unlucky to see thus far.

After this exciting expedition, we made our way towards Arnarstapi viewpoint. Unfortunately, the campsite we were supposed to be staying at tonight was no operating (neither were several of the other “winter campgrounds” nearby), so we had to make a long trek to Reykjavik. We stopped at the closed campsite for a small nap as it had been a very long day of driving (and a few close calls of not being able to get back up our roads to return to our roadtrip due to idiots). We drove a few hours longer than we had originally planned, but made it safely to the campsite we were spending Day 8 and 9 nights at anyways and were able to make a reservation for the night we needed. Once we got to the campsite, we quickly settled in.