Welcome to day 3 of our 14 day Iceland Road Trip!
Today we are headed west towards Snæfellsjökull National Park (no idea how to pronounce that so don’t ask) and our first stop of the day is Bjarnarfoss, an impressive waterfall right by road 54 on the Snæfellsnes Peninsula.
A few kilometers down the road was Rauðfeldsgjá Gorge. The hike from the parking lot is a little over a quarter-mile. You hike up a stream valley to a small waterfall and a narrow passage that leads inside the mountain. Inside, the space widens into a majestic grotto covered from the ground to the sky in a bright green moss. Overhead, the canyon lets in a window of light giving the walls and floor a mysterious glisten. The gorge extends inside the Rauðfeldsgjá fissure for several kilometers. You are welcome to explore at your own risk but I would recommend having an extra pair of shoes around unless you want to have soggy wet shoes for the rest of the day!
After our first two small hikes, we decided to stop by a small cliff-side cafe in the small town of Hellnar for breakfast!
After our delicious breakfast, we continued our drive along the coast, stopping at several stunning cliff-side viewpoints as well as our very first black-sand beach.
Our next area of exploration for the day was Mt. Kirkjufell & Kirkjufellsfoss in Grundarfjörður. Danish sailors, who frequently visited this area in the olden days called this dignified mountain “Sukkertoppen” or the Sugar Top. Mt. Kirkjufell also happens to be the most photographed Mountain and it was even featured in the popular Game of Thrones series!
We continued about an hour eastward and were starting to get pretty hungry so we stopped at a viewpoint and decided to make some dinner.
After dinner, we drove another 45 minutes or so to the Búðardalur tjaldsvæði campsite. Although a little crowded, the campsite had super nice toilets, showers, and a dining area if you wish to cook food and eat dinner. The cost for this campsite was also 1,500IKR per person (~$12 USD) but everything listed above was included. They also had laundry facilities which you can pay extra for.
Here is today’s roadmap recap: