We woke up a little after 07:00, got breakfast around 08:00, and we were out the door at 08:30.  Today’s itinerary had plenty of stops, but all right near one another, all on the western part of the peninsula.  The first thing we saw was a new animal for us on this trip, a group of goats.  Their horns were noticeably larger than those of the sheep.  They were pretty much the only thing we saw on the road between our hotel and Bjarnarfoss.  We had the falls all to ourselves.  There was a viewing bridge, and that was far enough for Crystal, but Justin scrambled up the hill to another viewing area.  The view from up there was arguably better, but only marginally so, and not worth the extra effort.

The next stop was Búðakirkja, a famous black church.  Right by the church there was a hotel, which we’d never seen or noticed in any videos we’d watched.  Why they put the hotel so close is beyond us.  We saw an inscription at the church about how it had been refurbished many decades back, without any financial assistance from spiritual leaders.  After walking around the church, we went down to the beach that was right nearby.  We did an impromptu walk along the beach to loop back to the parking lot, and on the walk we saw two seals, one spy hopping, one swimming.

We had in the itinerary a possible hike to Búðaklettur, a peak nearby, but we could see it from where we were, and it looked like a lava hill in the middle of a lava field.  Living in Tenerife and Hawaii, this wasn’t something that seemed especially worthwhile to us.  So we skipped that, and drove 10 minutes or so to the Snæfellsjökull viewpoint.  Candidly we can’t remember anything notable about it - perhaps the main attraction of the viewpoint was covered by clouds or something.

So we drove another 10 minutes, this time to the Rauðfeldsgjá gorge.  From the parking lot, it was a 20 minute walk to get to the giant slit in the side of the mountain.  Once we arrived there, Crystal wasn’t a fan of how crowded it was, especially with it being a tight fit and people having to walk over just a handful of rocks in the stream to avoid getting their feet wet.  It wasn’t that crowded, but there wasn’t much space either.  Then it started to rain, so Crystal went back to the car, and Justin cut short his time inside.  Even without the rain it was basically impossible to get any worthwhile photos, as it was so dark inside the gorge and so light outside.

Next up was the Snæfellsjökull Glacier View Point.  To get there we drove up some fairly rough gravel roads, so apparently we weren’t done with them after all.  It was raining a bit now, so we wondered if we’d see anything.  We aren’t sure if we got above the clouds or what, but the views were great once we got there.  [We can’t find a specific spot on Google Maps now, which is a bit odd, but the GPS from our photos have the coordinates 64°49'29.06" N 23°42'54.67" W.]  We could see greens, reds, yellows (moss), blacks, whites, and a little blue (the sky).  The ground was spongy, probably from tephra.  Coming down the hill (the same way we went up, Road 570), we listened to a podcast about how to best write recipes.

It was about 25 minutes to our next stop, the parking lot right by the Bárður Snæfellsás Statue.  The statue was fine, but we were there mainly to take in the coastline.  We started at the Arnarstapi Cliff viewpoint, then walked south along the coastal walk towards Hellnar, stopping frequently.  There was a ton to take photos of, including a couple dolphins that Crystal spotted.  On the walk south we saw the family of six that was behind us on the whale watching tour in Húsavik.  “Hola de nuevo!”  “Hola; ¡qué casualidad!”

At Hellnar we stopped for a bit at the area right around the Hellnar Viewpoint.  There were all sorts of fascinating shapes of rocks there, presumably from pressure over millions of years.  One set of rocks looked like the back of a stegosaurus.  There was also a big arch there, and some people walked around and stood on the top.  We walked back the way we came, but with all the rock formations, waves, birds, etc., it was effectively an entirely different view.  We passed by where we started, and continued a bit further, to the Arnarstapi Harbour.  Around the lighthouse, there were some spots akin to cenotes, with the ocean coming in underground to a handful of holes.  There were some Chinese tourists yelling across the cenotes, with all the bird and wave noise making it impossible for them to hear one another - only we got to hear it.

There was a gift shop right near the parking lot, and we got a Coke Zero (that we should share with Tomasz), and we used the restroom there.  We hopped in the car, but only for a bit again, maybe 10-15 minutes.  We got out again at Lóndrangar, the east side.  We did a short walk to a couple of the viewpoints there.  We decided against walking up to the base of the rocks, because up close we wouldn’t be able to tell what it was we were supposed to be looking at.  The view was better from afar.

We drove around to the other side of Lóndrangar, at Makarif.  Here we just took a quick photo, as the view - at least this time of day - was better on the other side.  As we continued on the drive, we rounded the corner of the peninsula, going to more of the west coast than the south coast, and the weather started to deteriorate.  The first stop on the west coast was Djúpalónssandur, a black sand beach.  This beach didn’t do much for us, but then again the weather was less than ideal, and also we walk past three black sand beaches most every day in Puerto.  

Following the beach was another short drive, to Saxhóll Crater.  Here it was quite windy.  To get up to the rim there were actual steps, but they were only a couple of centimeters high, so we were taking a ton of tiny steps.  We didn’t spend much time at the top, mainly because of the wind, but also because it seemed like a B+ version of what we’d experienced at Hverfjell.  When we got back on the road, we had another short drive, to Skarðsvík Beach.  This underwhelmed us, as it looked just like 50 different beaches in San Diego County.

The next site did not underwhelm, however.  When we left Skarðsvík Beach, it was very cloudy and gray, and the visibility wasn’t much at all.  But then there appeared to be a giant vertical crack in the clouds.  As we got a little closer we realized there was an enormous radio tower.  Apparently we saw Útvarpsmastrið á Gufuskálum, a longwave radio tower that is 412 meters tall - the tallest longwave radio tower in the world, and the tallest above ground structure in Western Europe.  The transmitter went off the air just last year, in September 2024.  We had no idea this existed, so it really threw us for a loop.

We rounded the corner to get on the north coast of the peninsula, and while it was still raining a bit, the visibility improved.  Not far after Hellissandur, we turned off onto a road to Kerlingarfoss and Svöðufoss.  We visited Kerlingarfoss first.  Crystal stayed in the car, and she had the right idea, as the view got worse as Justin got closer.  The falls had two parts, and as he walked closer, the lower part of the falls started to obscure the upper part of the falls.  Svöðufoss had an obvious path to the top of the falls on its right side, but from where we parked, there was no obvious way to cross the stream to take that path.  So Justin just enjoyed the view from the bottom.  

On the walk back to the parking lot Justin chatted with a couple guys from Massachusetts.  They had climbed up to the top, and they thought it was worth it.  They’d come up from Reykjavik today, on the one part of the island we hadn’t visited yet.  They said they’d also walked out to the volcano, and they thought that was worth it.  One thing that was not worth it was the last falls of the day, Baerjafoss.  It was nice enough, but maybe the 51st best one we’d seen.  It was also raining again now too.

When we got to the junction of Road 574 (which we were on) and Road 54, we headed southeast.  If we’d continued for 20 minutes east, we would’ve gotten to Kirkjufell.  If there’s anything worth seeing in that 20 minute stretch, we suppose we can see it next time.  There were two things left on the itinerary for today, the last being a beach with seals right near our hotel, and the next-to-last being a viewpoint we were quickly coming up on.  It was still rainy and gray, and we joked that the weather could change and this might end up being the best view of the trip.  Well…

We aren’t sure Snæfellsnesvegur was the best view of the trip, but it was way up there.  The weather did change, and we got a rainbow.  We could see the road winding down to the coast, and we could see for kilometers down the south coast.  There were bright green hills, fluffy white clouds, and blue sky.  We drove a couple hundred meters and then we stopped again, this time at a spot where we could see a waterfall.  It was Bjarnarfoss, where we’d started our day.  It looked a lot prettier now.  

We continued down Road 54, chasing the rainbow for 15-20 minutes, until we got to the parking lot for Ytri Tunga.  We looked around, and we saw a big group of people to the right, so we walked that way.  As we were walking, Crystal saw a seal just a bit offshore.  By the time we got to where the throng of people was, there were no seals.  Perhaps there hadn’t been a seal in the first place, and everyone just followed everyone else.  There was tons of wind, but no rain, thankfully.  

Back at the parking lot, Justin wanted to look over the ridge in the direction where no one was, and thank goodness Crystal came along.  We walked east for 2-3 minutes, and found a half dozen seals.  Many were feeding and then lifting their noses out of the water to breathe.  One was close to the shore and was sticking his whole head out occasionally.  Two seemed to be play-fighting with each other.  We spent probably 20-30 minutes watching them do their thing, and not a single other person was around.  When we went back to the parking lot, we saw a couple people who just arrived and urged them to go left instead of right, as they’d have the seals to themselves.

We got back to the room around 19:45, and we were surprised to see someone had made up our room.  We hadn’t given any thought to putting something on the door, as this was the first place where we’d spent more than one night.  We finished the last of the rum bottle, then went to dinner.  Crystal ordered mussels, and Justin ordered a lamb shank.  We realized that double vodka was the most cost-effective drink, so we ordered a couple of those.  Justin showed Crystal the somewhat famous Iceland to Ireland meme, and she didn’t get it and/or find it funny, but the Irish server loved it.

Somehow, during the conversation, Teslas came up.  We’d seen a ton of Teslas around the island, probably because gas is ridiculously expensive and electricity is ridiculously cheap.  But Crystal noted that we hadn’t seen a single Cybertruck, which was fairly damning given how many places there are where a 4x4 or all-wheel drive is needed.  When chatting with the guy who had checked us in yesterday, who was one of the servers tonight, we worked up the courage to ask if he was Portuguese or Spanish, and he confirmed one of us was right - he was from Mallorca.  But more than that, the chef was from Puerto - go figure!  The other waitress was from Czechia, and was surprised we knew a bit of Czech.  So we had a little something with all three of the servers tonight.  We chatted briefly with the chef on the way out and asked where he was from in Puerto (right near El Muelle), then went back to the room and crashed.