Monday, September 25, 2017

Sauðafell Guesthouse to Fosshotel Westfjords in Patreksfjörður - Day 8

We woke up to an amazing view this morning! If last night's airbnb was as city as city gets in Iceland, this is as country as it gets.


The view from our Window
My first thought was to be thankful that we stopped to have dinner before driving out here. Originally, we had toyed with the idea of driving to Saudafell and grabbing dinner at a local cafe or restaurant. Yeah...there's nothing out here.

Krista and her Blue Bottle coffee on the back porch, hanging with the local sheep

Sheep!
You could hear sheep bleating near and far. They really started going when the rain kicked in. "Heeyeyey," they'd say, "Do you feel that?! It's Raaiaiain!" And a reply from the next farm, "Baaaah. Rain!" 


The guesthouse and my rental car - dirty from the drive
A cemetery on site. Family, to be sure.



An honest to God sheepdog. He was trying to keep an eye on us.

Ground mutton (sorry, it had to be said)
Breakfast consisted of bread, salami, cheese and fruit. Krista had yogurt and when making her coffee, poured some Mjolk in, expecting milk or cream. What she got was pouring yogurt! Aaaand then made a fresh coffee.

Being a guest house, there were about 10 other people in the house. There were five women traveling together from Reykjavik. The women from Iceland were very nice and of course spoke English perfectly, like everyone else. They asked where we were from. "Berkeley, California," we said. "Oh, there are two other women here from Sacramento!" They asked where we were going. "The Westfjords," we said. "Where are you going next," and I replied, "Fosshotel Westfjords." She said, "Which fjord, there are a lot of them." "Patreksfjordur." They were pleased. "Why did you choose to go to the Westfjords rather than go South to the Blue Lagoon and Golden Circle?" I said, "Well, we heard all the Californians were going down South so we decided to go North/West." They laughed, really got a kick out of that. 

Then one of the women from Sacramento came down. She said she'd driven all around with her companion. The Iceland ladies said, "but you skipped the Westfjords." "No, I think we went there." And the ladies shook their head, "No." I found this amusing. The Sacramento lady also said she saw seals. "No." Great stuff!

We packed up and hit the road. The GPS predicted a 3 1/2 hour drive to our next destination. After last night's rough road experience, we did some snooping on the internet and found out which roads we'd be driving would be paved and which would be "gravel". Today's drive was mostly paved (phew). I still assumed it would take like 6 hours to get to our location.

Within 20 minutes, we saw this sign! 

Geothermal/Natural Hot Spring this way
My understanding is that the hot springs are free to the public and definitely on our bucket list. Of course we'd stop!

It was sprinkling with a light rain and was maybe 60 degrees out. Perfect for a dip in some nice warm water. We decided to jump all over this detour. 


Cute little bridge to the changing room and hot spring

Krista soaking in the warmth

ICELAND, HOT SPRING, YES!

This little changing room made me feel like a hobbit
 and after the hot springs, I think I looked like one too!

On we drove. The weather cleared up and we took advantage of the great lighting.


Krista took this amazing shot of some horses about to drop an album.
This horse is feeling cheesy.





I tried to make my own album but it ended up baaaAAAaaad. 
And then, the weather changed (again).




Hours later we stopped for a bathroom break at the ONLY store we'd seen in A WHILE. Krista walked to the front door where she was greeted by a woman and her dog. "Are you open?" "No." "Do you know of a place with a bathroom in the area?" "Yes, in Bifrost about an hour back that way." Not willing to turn back, we continued towards the Westfjords, where we found a bathroom and restaurant in like 10 minutes. That cheeky so-and-so!

Also, the weather changed again!

Icelandic Bumble Bee


We love being the only ones on the road. And we love taking pictures!
The wind and COLD picked up and we found ourselves crossing a bridge over choppy waters. It was at this point I realized just how BIG and DEEP and GRAND the Fjords are. They are SO full of water, sometimes whales come in for a feeding. We haven't been lucky enough to see one yet, but are hopeful, even though it's the very end of the season.


I got very excited about the wind and the cold and the water! I started keeping my eye out for a place to pull over and run around. Soon enough, we were at sea level with access to a decent, if FREEZING, beach. (No, I did not dare go for a swim or even touch the water).




I was loving it!
And then we RAN back to the car to warm up!
What ARE these? Floating tractors?

Eventually, we arrived at our hotel, checked in, ate dinner and settled down for the night.

Or so we thought...