The north eastern corner of Iceland has superb coastal scenery, diverse museums, huge bird colonies and even its own Stonehenge equivalent. It is an undeservedly overlooked area by tourists, if not by billionaires.
How to make your Range Rover look cheap: take it to the most expensive country on earth where a day trip costs £235pp, and suddenly 4 days in the Highlands doing an average of 12 miles per gallon looks good, especially when one considers the engine was running for 18 hours and 255 miles.
We had just finished a foray into the Icelandic Highlands at Moðrudalur roadhouse where their good value breakfast buffet (2000 kr) set us up for another cold, wet day.
£141 of petrol later, hence above working out, we were ready to go again. It was good to be back on smooth bitumen – the roads in Iceland are surprisingly good when they are sealed.
We were headed to another area that is refreshingly free of tourists: the north eastern most corner which is little more than a series of remote peninsulas and little fishing hamlets.
Turning off Highway 1 for Vopnafjörður, the landscape still looked fairly wild but at least there was grass on the mountains.
We spotted isolated whooper swans nesting on the open moorland amidst scattered tarns.
BUSTARFELL
It continued to pour with rain so a visit to Bustarfell seemed a good idea (Entry 1,500 kr.). This is an ancient manor house of traditional turf walls and roofs which was actually lived in until 1966.
It presents a tidy front of six pointy gables in jaunty red and white. In the same family since 1532, the oldest part in the present building dates back to 1769, but it is a real warren inside with a long interconnected layout and several upstairs living areas.
A friendly guide, initially clutching a pair of goslings which he had hatched, filled us in on the background. We started in a smart mid 19th century reception room with lots of starchy family portraits then ascended to a communal living/sleeping loft from 1880 which was surpringly cosy.
One could easily see the family keeping busy on the long winter nights: sewing implements and delicate handiwork were everywhere. Men carved chess sets and toys – think how productive we could be today without the Internet!
Downstairs, there were stalls for 6 cows and a henhouse beside the original kitchen which consisted of a large open hearth within the turf walls. A more modern version was around the corner and various tool and saddlery workshops.
It was still furnished in an authentic style and there were lots of interesting little bits and pieces. Some of the cupboards invited one to open them to reveal displays: it was all very well done. It was interesting to see the traditional turf construction too.
We finished our visit at the simple cafe next door. Our happy marriage cake and coffee for two was £12, which is quite possibly what one would pay at home except I might have had a latte rather than instant coffee out of a thermos – the cake was good though!
Bustarfell is about 20 km before Vopnafjörður, above the Hofsá River, and we continued along this lovely river valley towards town. We noticed a very sleek black helicopter disgorging a fisherman at a shiny lodge. The rivers in the area are famous for their salmon fishing – one pool is said to have once been kept purely for Prince Charles.
GLJUFURARFOSS
A short detour took us to Gljufurarfoss. This waterfall lies very close to the road just 12 km south of Vopnafjörður. It would be easy to drive past it without noticing it but it is well worth a look, being a rather magnificent example. It falls into a deep, mossy valley, dotted with nesting gulls, which runs down to the sea. There is an easy short walk down to the coast.
VOPNAFJÖRÐUR
Although nicely situated on a peninsula, there is not much to Vopnafjörður. Between 1850 to 1914, it was one of the principal points of departure for emigrants heading towards Canada and the USA, who shipped out on horse boats to Scotland (so called as they were exporting horses to the coal mines) then caught the train to Liverpool for their onward journey.
There is a display about the diaspora on the first floor of the old Customs House which highlights the poverty of many of the people who fled, including those subjected to a system of forced labour for farmers which was little more than feudal slavery.
Today, Western Icelanders, ie. Americans, still visit to research their ancestors.
SELÁRDALSLAUG HOT BATHS
I was delighted to find the Selárdalslaug Baths, the only commercially viable hot spring in the north eastern corner of Iceland. They sit on the Selá River and the turn off is 8 km north of Vopnafjörður.
The helicopter had beaten us to it. It was parked at Selá Lodge, a smart new fishing lodge just beyond the baths.
It is the brainchild of Jim Ratcliffe, the plastics/INEOS billionaire who has apparently bought up 6 of the great salmon fishing rivers in the area.
He actually acquired so much land that the Icelandic government hastily bought in a new rule that no one can own more than 10,000 hectares.
Ratcliffe claims to be saving the Atlantic salmon whilst still enjoying some rather fine fishing, albeit catch & release. Several new lodges have been built but the Selá River is the jewel in the crown. Packages start at £5000 for 3 days (non profit making of course).
Overlooking the Séla River, the swimming pool and adjacent hot pot were nothing fancy but perfectly adequate. For the first time in four days I felt warm! (Entry 1000 kr.)
Crossing the bridge to the north, a quick left leads to a track along the Selá on the other side. A way for fishermen, it also allows access to a hidden valley with lots of old farm ruins – these were the people who left for Canada and America, unable to face the hardships as well as the fallout from the 1875 Askja explosion.
BAKKAFJÖRÐUR
Still glowing from our hot pot, we camped on a grassy patch in the centre of this village.
Bakkafjörður grew rich on the herring industy but is now little more than a few scattered houses and derelict fish drying racks.
The 1946 harbour lies in ruins to one end of town, where a surpringly smart viewing platform looks out over flocks of eider ducks. Today’s modern harbour is actually located a few kilometres down the coast.
A fellow hot pot bather had suggested we walk out to the lighthouse, approached by a gravel road on the headland above town. It was indeed a pleasant wander, with old ruined farms to explore, a tall lighthouse and rugged cliffs – notable for our first puffin sighting!
We continued around the peninsula, stopping at a little black beach with a jolly changing hut for lunch. It was the only sand for miles but I couldn’t envisage swimming in these temperatures. It was strewn with a frightening amount of fishing flotsam and jetsam and lots of timber logs.
THÓRSHÖFN
Thórshöfn was small but busy, with smarter houses, although it is apparently no longer the busy herring port it once was. However, it does have a supermarket and a cafe.
We stopped to look at the 1969 U. S. Navy aeroplane wreck at the old landing strip north of town, but it has recently gone. The farmer has sold it and is now building a horse shed, as he took great delight in telling us once we had schlepped to the other end of the runway looking for it!
LANGANES PENINSULA
This long peninsula juts out to the north east of Thórshöfn and marks the area where the Arctic Ocean meets the warmer North Atlantic Ocean.
It is a scenic jumble of low hills and rock with a dramatic stony shoreline where forests of driftwood have washed in from Siberia. There are huge piles of fishing nets, colourful buoys and other plastic rubbish – it makes one wonder how much is actually in the ocean.
I spotted a whale skull and we walked over to take a look, finding the rest of the carcass nearby. Another long dead whale lay nearby: once, these washed up leviathans would have meant a rich bounty for the locals.
The birdlife was prolific. Arctic terns had claimed the lower shoreline, noisily protecting their young, but it was the cliffs at Skoruvikurbjarg that held the most interest.
A wooden bird watching platform marked mixed colonies of puffins, guillemots and gulls. We were able to walk along the edges and get great puffin views – the birds seemed to pose intentionally on rock slabs for us in a comical array of vivid orange feet and beaks.
It was amusing watching them come into land in the winds, their feet akimbo, whilst the gulls appeared suddenly from below like fighter jets.
It is a pleasant 750 m stroll further on around the headland to the lookout platform for Stóri-Karl, a small stack off the headland which is home to Europe’s third largest gannet colony.
It was an impressive sight: the birds tightly crammed together on the rock and the surrounding cliffs, some with grey fluff ball chicks. On the wing, their sleek forms cut gracefully through the air.
SKÁLAR
We cut across the peninsula to check out Skálar, an abandoned fishing village. At its peak in 1924, it had 117 inhabitants, but the advent of engine driven boats, coupled with the decline of the herring industy, caused it to be be deserted by 1946. One family turned up in 1948 and lasted until 1955 before also giving up.
In 1940 the British built a coastal observation point above the village and the Americans took over in 1942, also building a radar installation. There were once 24 huts on the moor whose remnants can be spotted on the way in, with lots of curved metal roof supports. I suspect they spent most of the time in the clouds.
Of the village, now only a jagged assortment of cement remains survive in a picturesque spot above a rubbish strewn beach. I claimed two small metal buoys as Icelandic souvenirs although I could have picked up fifty.
The road on to the lighthouse is straightforward gravel. The land is covered in rough rocks with heathers and lichens in between.
We stopped to take pictures at the ruins of a hide, standing amidst a mass of timber. Amongst the many plastic bouys are large round metal ones – perhaps they predate the plastic ones. I would love them for the garden but they are sadly too big.
On the way back to Thórshöfn we had several stops to check out the gannets and puffins. It was 3° and a howling gale which made for quite exciting viewing as they sped past us or hovered as they tried
multiple landings.
We returned to camp at Thófshöfn and noticed the alternator was making a funny noise. Our home mechanic said to ignore it, it might just be having a moment. Do Range Rovers have moments? We were about as far from Reykjavik as it was possible to be!
The housesitter told us the car we’d left him with had broken down and he’d abandoned it in town. Luckily he got talking to a friendly chap in the pub who suggested he try putting petrol in it – problem solved! We hoped ours would be as easy to resolve.
RAÐANES
We left Thórshöfn on a good gravel road. It was a windy day but with fleeting glimpses of blue sky which was most unusual.
About 30 km from Thórshöfn, there is a turnoff for the Raðanes peninsula with parking after a kilometre. An easy 7 km walk does a loop around the rugged coastline: the volcanic scenery is quite beautiful and there are some impressive rock arches.
RAUFARHÖFN
Raufarhöfn is another settlement gone with the herrings although it is a nice drive through an undulating landscape strewn with spikey lava rocks. There are few vehicles on the roads.
Apart from a lone cafe displaying a plastic polar bear (the last one which floated in on an ice flow from Greenland was rapidly shot), its main attraction is the Arctic Henge, which has still to receive the finishing touches.
Perched on a hill above town, it is their modern take on a sundial, with a four legged central arch and four flanking ones, all precariously erected with giant monoliths. The seasons and mythology come into the mix somewhere too.
HRAUNHAFNARTANGAVITI
It didn’t detain us terribly long and soon we were heading to Hraunhafnartangaviti, the northern most point on the Icelandic mainland, passing through a remote area of low headlands and large inland lakes with the odd beach house or little farm. The area is lyrically known as Melrakkaslétta or ‘arctic fox plain’, not that we glimpsed so much as a whisker of one of those.
There is a lighthouse at Hraunhafnartangaviti which is approached along the rocky coast by a 2 km walk, edged with a huge quantity of washed up fishing nets and rope, all intermingled with the driftwood. There must be huge seas, and storms to fling the timber so high up on the land.
The lighthouses in Iceland seem peculiarly minaret-like to me, possibly due to their tall, square construction with vertical central stripes. They seem to be painted in an earthy limewash. This one was no exception. Beyond it, we peered over the boulders onto the Arctic Ocean which looked suitably cold.
KÓPASKER
The gravel road, lined with eroded hills, finally ran us into Kópasker where a sweet little campsite nestled in a bowl at the back of the main street. We had a pleasant view over the surrounding countryside and the hot shower was even included in the fee (1500 kr/free with camping card) which was quite unusual.
Later we had a whisk around the town on our bicycles: a supermarket with a cafe, hot tubs to rent, a bird watching hide and a distant lighthouse. The lakes in the area apparently attract a lot of rare birdlife and there is more good bird watching at Rauðinupur, a peninsula just to the north.
It was still windy, wet and cold and the noise from the alternator was getting worse. At least we had done what we had wanted to do in the area, but now we would have to deal with the car issue. And I suspected it was going to be anything but cheap!
