Miss HappyFeet: THE UNCHARTED TERRITORY OF ICELAND: NORTH AND WESTFJORDS

Thursday, September 22, 2016

THE UNCHARTED TERRITORY OF ICELAND: NORTH AND WESTFJORDS

North and Westjords of Iceland are area less travelled by if compared to the Ring-Road and the south of Iceland, which are well endowed with natural beauty like beautiful glaciers and endless cascading waterfalls.

In this post, I would like to briefly share some of these uncharted destinations in Iceland. Not too details though, as I hope to describe each place more (in words and pictures of course) in separate posts.

Our cosy Volkswagen Golf in the dawn at 2.30am.

To make it short, I travelled to Iceland this summer with a few friends and we shared a car to travel the whole Iceland. Akureyri, dubbed as the second largest city of Iceland, is the capital of North Iceland which is also an important port in the north region as well as acting as a fishing centre.

The harbour of Akureyri.

The peaceful town surrounded by snowy-capped mountain ranges.

We spent one afternoon strolling around the city in company of the soothing summer breeze. Akureyri Church is the famous landmark of this city and there is a tourist pedestrian street located just around the corner lined with various souvenirs shops and eateries. Unfortunately, during our visit, Akureyri Church was closed due to a funeral ceremony. Thus, we just managed to walk around the exterior of the church to take photos. We wanted to go whale-watching in Akureyri but unfortunately our budget was tight. (I heard Gold Coast in Australia gives a cheaper option for whale-watching experience!!!)

The Church building.

After a few hour strolling in the town, we made our way to the west for our next destination, Hvitserkur. The drive in northwest region of Iceland, which is sparsely populated, is more challenging as compared to the south, due to enormous amount of sheeps roaming on the roads, which might catch the driver offguard. One must be extra cautious while driving especially after night falls (what’s more if you are driving during winters with shorter daytime!). The journey to Hvitserkur from Akureyri took us around three hours, but it was worth the drive to witness an impressive natural sculpture in which only the inscrutable God is capable of manifesting such masterpiece! Seeing is believing!!!

We got down to the coast and got some nice photos closer to the natural rock sculpture.

After that, we made our ways to Dynjandi waterfalls, which means “thunderous” in Icelandic. It is located in the remote Westfjords region. It is a series of seven waterfalls, with cumulative height of 100m, named Baejarfoss, Hundafoss, Hrisvadsfoss, Gongumanafoss, Strompglufrafoss, Haestajallafoss and lastly, Dynjandi respectively.

Picnicking admist thunderous cascades of the waterfall.

Dynjandi Waterfall.

Before we called it a day in this remote region of Iceland, we spent some time making our ways to Latrabjarg cliff, a home to birds in the Arctic region, especially the famous species – puffin, a penguin-like bird with bright-orange beak. Latrabjarg cliff is home to bird photography but one must exercise extra caution while walking along the cliff as the edges of the cliff might be fragile. I can’t imagine having a free fall from a 441km-high- cliff (Touchwood…) and as lady luck was on our side, we managed to witness a pair of puffin lover sharing a kiss. How sweet! The puffins are such cute birds that are nice to see, but not really nice to eat!!! (Read my post on : ICELANDIC GOURMET FEAST-- You Do Not Want To Miss This!!!)

The tall, high and steep cliff overlooks the Arctic Ocean.

Photographing the puffins.

The love birds.

That’s all for now and I promise, there's more to come. For your upcoming visit to Iceland, I do hope you'll be able to make the northwest region one of your stops!!!