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Fjords of North West
1. Great weather in the morning!
2. Icebergs are still there.
3. Stop on our way to observe seals.
4. When some rest, others seem to play in the water.
5. Under the eyes of ubiquitous and placid sheeps.
6. Small lighthouse on the coast.
7. I draw the portrait to one of these famous Icelandic small horses with long manes.
8. Small church along a fjord. There are many, always small and often with only one house around.
9. As VivaLaVida crosses a small pass between two fjords, the horizon deepens.
10. …
11. To reach a large beach far west of the fjords, the road is endless: while in a straight line, the GPS indicates 55 miles, it will take 125 miles of winding road to get there!
12. The end of day light is spectacular.
13. Rauðarsandur beach is behind this point…
14. VivaLaVida will finally reach it at sunset, enjoying last sun rays on its pretty black church.
15. Calm morning on the inlet.
16. Rauðarsandur beach is Iceland’s largest and its color denotes with omnipresent black elsewhere. Wonder where does this colorful sand come from.
17. Refelction behind the beach.
18. Patchwork at rising tide.
19. Marine atmosphere…
20. In a nearby bay, stop near a ship wreck.
21. These fjords are beautiful and constitute the least visited part of Iceland and let us enjoy more solitude.
22. We camp on the bank of a fjord sheltering hundreds of swans.
Discovery of Snæfellsness Peninsula coming soon. 😉
North Coast and traditional habitat
1. The Ásbyrgi Canyon is amazing with its high basalt cliffs.
2. Beautiful bay on Arctic Ocean North of Husavik.
3. We stop there for the lunch…
4. … the opportunity for Emile to play on the beach.
5. The small harbor town of Husavik still has some old houses.
6. Its small harbor is famous for whale watching.
7. Old houses on the harbor.
8. We return to the bay to spend the night.
9. Sunset is gorgeous!
10. Deformed sun on the horizon. We even had two sunsets, the first on the cliff then, the race of the sun being almost tangent to the horizon, the second on the ocean.
11. Iceland is not that famous for offering colorful sunsets but this one was an exception.
12. On the road to Akureyi, the big city of the North.
13. Interesting feature: in Akureyri, to support the morale of the population during the last financial crash, the red lights are heart shaped… 😉
14. At the end of the day, we go to visit the historic Glaumbær farm, one of the few unspoiled which is now a museum.
15. House from the beginning of the last century.
16. The windows often had candles, supposed to limit the heat loss of the little insulated glass…
17. The farm, older, is partially buried for better insulation. Buildings are contiguous to limit areas exposed to cold.
18. Built in peat and covered with peat and moss, it was the best way to protect oneself from the cold for poor people.
19. Not far away, the beautiful old church of Vidimyrarkirkia.
20. Continuing our journey on the north coast, we come across this curious road going directly into the ocean!
21. Arrival at the end of the day on the site of Hvítserkur Rock.
22. A spectacular lava block that rises on the ocean and evokes a troll or some extinct dinosaur grazing algae…
23. Húnafjordur Bay.
24. We camp near this little house…
25. … and discover large icebergs far on the horizon.
Next coming soon in the Northwest fjords.
South coast…
1. As Gaël requested it, here is the whole family. 😀
2. An example of the language at the checkout of a store, inapprehensible and unpronounceable for us.
And to show you what the rain can be there, here is a short video
of Isabelle made the day before where it rained like that almost all day long..!
3. Continuation of the South Coast to the East. VivaLaVida crosses many Gravel Bars, large river beds that regular floods clear of all
vegetation.
4. Showers that offer beautiful skies.
5. Waterfall Foss á Síðu along road Nb 1.
6. Rainbow in frontof the Vatnajökull ice cap in the distance.
7. Another one to celebrate VivaLaVida.
8. Gravel bar.
9. Shower on the coast.
10. Vatnajökull ice cap, the largest in Iceland.
11. It is crossed by many volcanoes more or less active.
12. In the evening, VivaLaVida finds a nice boondocking place to camp near a glacial lake.
13. First colors at dawn.
14. Camp of VivaLaVida, close to the glaciers.
15. Light beams…
16. … on raw elements.
17. I couldn’t not show to Isabelle, a jewel fan, the “Diamond Beach”, famous for the icebergs that stand out from the Vatnajökull and flow
into the ocean by Lake Jökulsárlón before stranding on the black beach! 😉
18. Photo souvenir…
19. Jökulsárlón Lake.
20. Larger icebergs must melt before crossing the channel leading to the ocean.
In the next update, we will leave the coast to discover the Lakagigar area where new small volcanoes appeared only some decades ago.
East Denali HighWay & Valdez (AK)
The Denali Highway is definitely not a highway, it was in poor condition and it took me almost the full day to drive the seventy remaining miles of dirt.
1. Glacial plains make the rivers meander.
2. During my lunch stop, I first saw the mother ptarmigan…
3. … then some of its progeny. Two months after birth, they have grown and are about half their adult size.
4. Wide glacial valleys offer great views.
5. Getaway on a side track.
6. There to, there is nice flowers.
7. Near the East Junction, the view opens on the Alaska Range.
8. A weather opening allows me to see off one of the highest mountains in that range, Mount Hayes, which rises to over 13,800 feet above sea level.
9. Light patch…
10. Clouds arrive…
11. Boondocking on a hill in the tundra.
12. Given the bad weather announced, I continued the road to Valdez. The road ends here!
13. The mouth of Valdez Glacier Stream is a real birdhouse for bald eagles! I observed more than thirty of those, awesome! Here is one that comes…
14. … and lands not too far on a hunting spot. I crawled 300 yards in the mud to get closer… 😀
15. Returning, I see fresh grizzly tracks.
I talked to a local who stopped to see VivaLaVida and he tells me that this place is frequented by many grizzlies, especially late in the day for a good reason. This place is close to a salmon hatchery. And as you probably know, after a 4-year cycle, to reproduce, salmons return to their birthplace. Here, they try to go upstream in a nearby river but are blocked by a waterfall and remains between the bay and the waterfall. While this is only the beginning of the breeding season, there were already thousands of salmons crowded into this little river and bears have understood that it’s easy to catch food up here to make their required reserves for hibernation.
So I decided to wait a moment and I was lucky… 😉
16. A male probably 4-5 years old arrived on the scene and catched a first salmon without waiting!
17. He repeated the operation 6-7 times, not leaving much to the seagulls quickly ready to steal the remains. It was funny to see the bear trying to scare thoses when they came to close. 😀
18. I’m only about 12 yards away and enjoy the spectacle!
19.
The grizzly is not the only one to take advantage of the opportunity; This sea lion is also hunting. He catched about 12 salmons in about half an hour!
20. Eyes still dazzled by this show, I went to sleep at the bottom of the glacier.
21. The rain fell again, moisture was probably at 100%, giving an atmosphere of rainforest…
22. To complete this update, a small iceberg rather aesthetic in layers of mist…
Way back from Valdez and McCarthy Road to come in a few days.
Thank you again to follow us with as much fidelity! 😉
D5 Creation