Day 9

We were rudely awaken on our penultimate morning at 5:45 AM by a young lamb greeting the day. That would have been adorable had it not been 5:45 in the morning.  But, such is life on the farm.  We picked a good place for our last two nights mostly because it provided the best breakfast yet. Coddled eggs and bacon, french toast,  and homemade blueberry and banana skyre.  Another thing we haven't seen anywhere else was a pitcher of sour milk which you're meant to add brown sugar to and some granola.  It was funky and tasty. 

We had but one thing on our itinerary which was to drive to and around the Snaelfessnes Peninsula. We knew it was going to be a long day and didn't know exactly what to expect.  It was the usual gorgeous drive and soon turned to lava fields and moonscapes.  We saw this in the distance.

And then we saw...wait for it...a waterfall.  As we had been driving for a bit over an hour and it was a stunningly beautiful day, we decided to climb up it.  It was a good challenging hike and as always, everything about it was worth it.  The bottom picture is the view away from the waterfall.  You can sort of make out our little white Kia.

 

We took this picture because there are no native trees to Iceland so it was interesting to see a small grove of trees on the trail.  

There was really only one other thing I was dying to do and I didn't know exactly where it was.  I was afraid we would somehow miss it.  But there it was.

It looks like it's just a cliff but the fracture you see in it can be gotten into by walking on rocks in a stream around a corner.  The thing is, once inside, you can still see the sky.  It turns out, my favorite thing is going inside of stuff where you can still see the sky.

We could have gone further along than we did but ultimately there was a rope used to climb and we would have gotten soaked.  At some point I was afraid even if I could climb farther I couldn't get back.  

At this point I needed a cuppa and a snack.  Fortunately, we found a little town with a little cafe.

We fueled up and drove a little while longer until we found this.

We stayed quite a while because the water was so blue and the birds were fun to watch.  I was hoping against hope to see puffins though I don't think I did.

We had a few more stops but ultimately we drove exhausted back to our hotel.  My legs are done. We spent some time resting and getting caught up on the news and then took one more walk up the hill behind our hotel.  The views were lovely.  

We had a long last soak in the hot tub and were joined by a french Canadian who has worked as a singer on cruise ships for the last 17 years.  It was nice to talk to someone else about what we had seen and it was nice to see how he lit up when we told him we were going to Ireland in August. 

At some point today I think Rebecca and I both realized that it's enough already and we're ready to come home.  After we walked in the 3rd or 4th shop today and the workers spoke to us in Icelandic we realized that after 9 days we and our clothes are dirty and unkempt enough to be taken for locals.  It's time!