Today we have a very long drive. We can see where we are headed but theres quite a bit of water between us and it! There is a car ferry - very expensive and as it turns out I cant get tickets anywaynot because there is no space but because they need three days notice!
I had a chat with a guy in the kitchen last night (if you can call three kettles on a 6 inch worktop and two cold water sinks a kitchen). He had just cycled the route that route and tells me it will be easy with good sealed road all the way. Are you sure, I ask? I was pretty sure there were a couple of gravel sections and one of them pretty steepish. Oh yes, theres a bit of a hill, but nothing major he tells me. Your van will easily cope with that.
Nevertheless we decide to start early. Early and late never really happens here anyway since it is never dark! We set off at 7.30am in drizzle.
As promised, the road is gloriously sealed with newish tarmac and we sail round the first six water inlets with shortcuts over
bridges on a couple and all on nice flattish roads that skirt around the waters edge. We are also early enough to almost have the road to ourselves.
Now we reach the portion of road that I believed to be unpaved. Id love to have been proved wrong but as suspected we see the warning sign for gravel road ahead and the tarmac abruptly stops.
Now we are climbing steadily into the mountainsand then nit so steadily on switchback roads. I try to capture it on photo but there is no way to accurately represent the steepness of the route. A bit of a hill? That guy must have been cycling up Everest before he came here!
The gravel road is pretty slow going and rather muddy. Its frightening because its very wet. I havent seen a single escape road since Ive been here so if you lose your grip or brakes fail theres only one place youre going to be going!
Two steep mountain passes under our belts and we are down in the valley with lovely sealed roads again. Time to stop for a brew in the back! Weve been on the road three
We enjoy the rich scenery of steep mountains reflected in ocean inlets making good progress on the well made road.
We have now officially left the West Fjords and reached the turn off for the West Iceland peninsular. Here the tarmac road ends as abruptly as it started and, according to the map, we are back onto rutted gravel for the duration!
This is quite a long stretch of road and we will be passing the ferry terminal that we could have arrived on not far from our destination campsite. We enjoy the scenery, making a few short stops on the way.
I can see the ferry in the distance and, as suddenly as it started, the dirt track ends and we have a good new road to drive on. We are at our destination, Grundarfjordur, in no time!
Its 2pm. We locate the campsite and have a late lunch. Its a very basic sitejust loos and cold water available though we could use the swimming pool showers if we could face a swim. Although the pool has warm water, its a small outdoor pool and
the wind us decidle chilly. Its also quite variable rain wise too - not that it makes a lot of difference if you are going swimming.
We decide to investigate the area. We find the filling station and top up the diesel. The only supermarket in town is here toowe only need bread but they are sold out.
To be honest there us nothing else here. Their claim to fame is the steep sided Kjurkufell Mountain (which we saw on the drive in) and its waterfall which we will see on our way out tomorrow.
We return to the campsite where Ian spends the afternoon snoring (he wont sleep tonight!) and I plan tomorrows exciting itinerary from leaflets I picked up in the information office.
