5 days in Iceland during winter - Day 3...

if you are new... scroll down and read day 0 & 1 first...

we got up early in the morning, drove to a bakery and had breakfast there... mmm... I always like seeing bakeries in foreign countries... often quite different, and it was... we tried some things and it was quite good! The weather today wasn't as good as yesterday, the sky was white and there was a lot of wind... we had to drive quite a bit since we were heading direction djupavik in the north. See the green line on the map. It used to be a village, but since the fish factory closed in 1954, it became a ghost town... I saw some pics on Sigur Ros's movie... and I was sold... had to see it! Strangely enough, I was not able to find pics from djupavik during winter... I would find out why later...

 As mentioned, the weather was not too good, but still it was beautiful in a different way... the snow was blown by the wind over the road and was dancing, twirling, crossing over the asfalt. So beautiful... I'm afraid I wasn't able to capture this in a picture, since my pictures don't dance... in fact it looks really flat here, but believe me... it was not...



we had to cross some land first, quite high, and we were in the snow again... often there were parkings to put on snowchains... fortunately we didn't need that. I loved that car! I would love it even more later... soon to find out!
Funny were the signs for picnic... it's an international sign:



but here on iceland, haha, they don't have trees (almost) so that was sooo funny to see the tree with the table...

lots of snow later, then landscape changed again, snow dissapeared and we were approaching the sea again.



I think Iceland has the most churches/inhabitants in the world... every village has a church, and there are even churches without villages... or perhaps, 3 houses...



the houses are interesting too, all sorts, colors, I will show you more tomorrow...
but here are a couple of interesting samples in the north:





everything seems old here... as a photographer it's an interesting place! Obviously I stopped when ever needed. Things that got my attention were for example abandoned cars... First I looked inside if there wasn't any driver behind the steering wheel anymore and then I made some pictures...

well easy going, you must be thinking... but it was not... it was FREEZING cold! For my first car, I wasn't prepared...



but for the next ones... I was!! gloves, a sort of hat... yess!! Oh! it's a good idea to bring your ski clothes!!



still we passed along interesting landscapes... I'll try to show some through my eyes... using my zoooom...

horses are everywhere, in fact... soo many that I almost forgot to shoot some...

meanwhile the road was getting rougher... what first started as a two lane asphalt road, transformed soon to a single lane gravel path the further we went...







though this was still a place people lived... well even that was going to change...

 we were driving along the coast when we saw a seal laying down on a rock...
Too late... as soon as my car stopped and I grabbed my camera he jumped into the water... pity...

from then on we were seal hunting... no luck... only birds were showing themselves...

meanwhile we arrived closer and closer to our goal, the road wasn't much road anymore but there were still some traces from other cars that used this road... even that was going to change...

indeed about 30 km from our goal we were alone... Just a small path... covered with snow, to the left the mountain, the the right the sea...

I needed my hands on the steering wheel, so no more pictures for a while... only the story... At a certain moment we arrived at a very steep point, the snow was very thick, the sea was deep below us... small road, steep, snow... Geertje said: "Koen! you are not going down there? Aren't you?" well... I thought... of course I will! there was no way to turn, even if I wanted! it wasn't getting better, and at a certain moment, I made a decision. I knew it was still about 12-15km to arrive in djupavik and I was driving in 4X4 mode, at 10-20km an hour at this moment... so, it would take us at least 30m perhaps 1h to get there, and then walk around and shoot some pictures and come back, again a lot of time... and it was already 4pm!! It would soon get darker... so I decided to turn back and come back one day to visit djupavik (isn't that a good reason to come back to island?)
I turned the car and... after a little while, I had to conquer the steep road again, but now... I had to climb! I needed all the power the 4X4 could deliver, but slowly we succeeded... told you before... I love that car ;-) haha

driving back I wanted to take a shortcut, see on the map below in red... but after driving for a while in this direction, I wanted to turn left and cross the country to the westcoast, but... i was stopped... the road was "impassable"

so back

and back the way we came...
it was getting darker but I still halted for a picture...

we had a long way to drive, as you can see on the map... I was getting tired... and finally around 21h we arrived at Stykkisholmur... A cute fisherman's village... looking for a hotel... a place to sleep... something to eat...
driving through the village a few times, we suddenly discovered a B&B sign... and yes... there was light! We rang the door... an old lady opened the door... she was at least 120 years old :-) not kidding! :-) I spoke the famous words: "hello, we are looking for a bed for tonight..." she smiled and invited us with open arms inside and showed us her best bedroom :-) Wonderfull! She bearly spoke english, but she was a perfect host! She told us that we could use her living room to sit, her bathroom to use, anything... and there was an other guest too she said...
meanwhile it was about 22h and we were hungry, fortunately we spotted a restaurant, while we were driving through the village looking for a hotel, so went there... I guess it was the only open restaurant today, we were not alone... I had some lamb... if you like lamb.. you can't go wrong with that in iceland! and we went back to the B&B, the landlady welcomed us back and she made some tea for us with a sort of pancakes... a little bit later a guy entered the house too, it was the other guest... I started talking, and he told us he was american, and did research for a movie they were going to shoot later this year... guess he was the director... he said his name was george lucas or something... anyway... we had an interesting conversation... in fact, he told us he made the same trip we did... He said... that the people in iceland drive fast!... mmm... I must have passed him... ;-) He was lucky today, he didn't go to the north as we did but to the west and had a sunny day!! well, we were tired, said goodnight and went to bed... the following morning... mmm... I'll tell you tomorrow! sweet dreams!

continue here