Day 10 - Grundarfjordur, Iceland

Sunday, July 13

This morning we were up at 5:30 am and off to breakfast at 6:00 giving us time to just relax and enjoy it while the ship was pulling in to the fjord and dropping anchor.  It was foggy but we could certainly see the mountains ling the shore kine with the town at its base.  Most everything was quite green - not as now topped as we have been seeing.

We were on the first tender to leave the ship along with all the other passengers assigned to the two buses making the full day tour we were taking, It was just a short trip into the dock where our buses were waiting. Essentially the trip took us full circle around the ring road that followed the shoreline all the way around the peninsula where we arrived.  Inside was the huge volcano called Snaefellsjokull that is covered with a huge glacier that was hidden most of the time by clouds.  This was made famous by Jules Verne in his book Journey to the Center of the Earth.  

Ringing that were more mountains.  What was different was the land from those mountains to the shoreline. On the north side it was green and lush but with high cliffs at the water.  

As we moved around to the south side the land was flat all the way to the water and most of it covered with volcanic rock most of which had yellow and green moss with lots of rock still showing.  Our tour guide told us that only 25% of the land in Iceland is covered in vegetation. The interior is desert.

There are not many trees as the Vikings cut down all the trees when they lived here and the sheep eat everything including tree shoots now.  They are working hard on planting trees but must fence in the areas to keep the sheep away.  The result is what they call a forest is acreage of carefully planted trees fenced so short that you could see over most of them.

We enjoyed lunch at this little grass roofed restaurant in Arnarstapi (soup, trout, rice with mixed vegetables) which was next to a small campground.  Thenwe  hiked along the cliffs at the sea edge checking out the nesting grounds. We saw kittiwakes and Arctic tern as well as lots of fulmars (a type of gull).  

For a brief moment the clouds parted so we could see the tip of the glacier covered mountain.

 We walked to a black sand beach past four different sized stones that were used to determine a fisherman's strength to know if they could row well enough to work on the boats.  Ken was able to lift the smallest one to his hips but not the third one which was the requirement.  In fact he could barely even shift the second one.

 

The "sand" was really more like gravel of varying size.  Ken is holding what was at the water's edge and about the finest we could find.

Once again the clouds shifted so we could see some of the glacier covered mountain top.

Later we drove by this light colored sandy beach.

Near the end of the day we stopped briefly see this much more modern church that was in Stykkisholmur, a thriving city with some beautiful homes and a tourist mecca.  Churches like this are often used for concerts and other such gatherings.

 As we neared our starting point we could see our ship at anchor in the bay waiting for us.

We arrived back just before dinnertime and lots of sharing about what each of us had seen during the day with each other and our waiter, Mario.  The head waiter, Wolfgang, was making a peach sauce that was served over ice cream at a table top right by us so we had fun bantering with him too.  In fact, I got to do a bit of the stirring while he added ingredients.  Then after dinner we attended a production song and dance show before calling it a night.