Hvolsvollur to Kirkubaejarklaustur

Puffins!!!
We only drove about 200kms today but climbed the equivalent of 64 flights of stairs, walked for 17 kilometres and huffed and puffed our way to massive waterfalls, impressive seascapes, gorgeous glaciers, a spectacular gorge and… we met the incredibly adorable Puffins of Iceland, or "Lundi" in the local language.
Seljalansfoss (foss meaning waterfall) is a massive and impressive curtain of water falling 65 metres over an old sea cliff. The really cool thing about this one is that you can walk behind the falls, view it from every angle and get incredibly wet all at the same time! Raincoats and beanies were our friends today (it reached a stunning summer temperature of 11°) but this was a real pleasure. Some other beautiful falls within very close proximity made this a perfect start to our day.
A trip to Iceland wouldn't be complete without a visit to Skógafoss (again, foss meaning waterfall), another impressive example of a glacial fall. We wandered around the base then braved the steep'ish 465 stairs to the top (though we took more steps than stairs!) What a view!! And not only are the falls themselves impressive, so are the views from the farmlands to the North Atlantic Ocean and back towards the glaciers. Magnificent! Samara's new word for this mornings experience is Fu-tiful, a blend of two descriptors, one more colourful than the other (which you can probably guess.)
Geological marvels came next in the form of Dyrhólaey - weathered rocky, volcanic headlands resulting in black sand beaches that stretched as far as the eye could see and surrounded by delicious little wildflowers. Here is where we met the Puffin colony!! These adorable little birds (who mate for life) fluttered their wings oh-so-quickly, keeping abreast of the cold and blustery winds and guarding their cliff-side burrows. They were so cute!!!!!!!!! From Dyrhólaey, we had views from glacier to ocean, from farmlands filled with the colourful and stout Icelandic ponies and shaggy sheep (which were both on the menu at last night's restaurant, we noticed) to outcrops of weather beaten cliffs. A truly vast picture.
And Puffins!!
Our last stop today was to the impossible to pronounce Fjaðrárgljúfur Canyon. Go on … I challenge you! We ended up referring to it as Fler-fler-fler-fler canyon (which is our interpretation of most Icelandic words!) Again, it was absolutely stunning but Samara was too tired to come up with a new word for its brilliance by then. It's a canyon of approximately 2 kms in length and is over 100 meters deep, with the river Fjaðrá running through the bottom, making it quite the sight to behold.
Oh, and Puffins!!Read more