Aug 30 – Barnafoss and Changed Plans

To get the spare tire mount fixed we told the campervan people that we were headed towards the Snæfellsnes peninsula so they called a repair place in Olafsvik, which out at the far end.

We decided to hit a few of the places on our list first, that were on the way out there.

First were the Hraunfossar waterfalls and the close by Barnafoss. To get to them we could take the easy way on the highway or take another dirt road through the highlands which would be much more scenic.

The day started very cloudy and some rain. The rain stopped while in the highlands but the low clouds hid most of the mountains that surrounded us. It was still beautiful in a stark way but could have been so much better.

The road was in pretty good shape so I could go anywhere from 30 to 60 kph without too much shaking.

We got high enough to see some snow.

Ghostly mountains off in the distance.

A photosphere.

Then back down to lower levels and paved roads to the waterfall.

Hraunfossar is is a cliff face with hundreds of little waterfalls leaking out of it. There is no river but the water comes from underground.

A photosphere.

One the the viewpoints had the amazing swirling rocks.

Barnafoss was just a bit upstream but was mostly hidden. It did have beautiful blue green water.

Now we headed out on to the peninsula. Up to now the weather had been mostly cloudy, some sun and a few rain showers.

Once we got on to the peninsula that all changed. We discovered that the whole west coast of Iceland was under a weather warning because of high winds and heavy rain.

I think I can safely say that I have never driven in worse weather. The wind was so bad that the van was been pushed around a lot and we had some scary moments. The rain came down in buckets and was almost horizontal.

We tried to stop at the famous Kirkjufell mountain and its nearby waterfall. When we pulled into the parking lot all we saw were people getting thoroughly soaked and having trouble standing up.

This was the view of the mountain.

We decided to just drive to the repair place. This was at a lookout over the ocean. At least there was a faint rainbow.

It only took the guy about 1/2 hour to weld the mount back together and we were on our way.

When I took the wheel off to put it in the van last night I noticed that the lug nut holding it to the mount were loose and I could wiggle the tire. This must have caused enough vibration to break the weld n the mount.

At this point the weather forecast was calling for this terrible weather for the next three days . We knew that we wouldn't even want to get out of the car so we decided to abandon the west coast for now and head east. Even the repair guy said “Just go east”. We will circle back here at the end of the trip.

Of course the “quickest” route off the peninsula took us up and over the center highlands which meant in addition to high winds and rain, we got fog.

I did drive slowly but we still got a bit of a scare when tail lights suddenly appeared in front of us.

As soon as got off the peninsula the weather did get better for our drive up the ring road.

We are spending the night in a campground in Blonduos.

It was a very long driving day.