Day 10 – The West Fjords ( and puffins)

The West Fjords are on the north west coast of Iceland and were always at the top of my list of places to visit. Remote, beautiful and not very touristy. Specifically, I was heading towards the famous bird cliffs which housed millions of seabirds and were located at the west most point of not only Iceland, but Europe itself. Greenland doesn’t count because it’s  not a real place.

The drive to the cliffs is a long one, with the road sweeping alongside each fjord before shooting up and over to reach the next one. Also, golden beaches. You’d almost think you were kn Australia if it were not for the snow covered volcano photo-bombing the scene. On my way to the cliffs I picked up some hitch hikers with names straight out of a cartoon; Gill and Drop. I also ran into Falco, the German cycle tourist I had met a few days earlier. He looked to be in good health although he confessed to have ran into some knee pain of his own due to the wind.

After about 4 hours of driving we made it to the cliffs. And there, hiding just beneath the edge of the cliff, I finally saw my first Puffin. Getting to it was an interesting experience. The cliffs are mostly loose soil and rocks. You can feel how soft the ground is 20 metres from the edge. The procedure for getting close enough to see the birds is to get on your belly and slowly crawl up to the edge. The idea is that you will be less likely to send a chunk off cliff loose if only part of your weight is resting on it. I spent the rest of the day at the cliffs, and towards the evening I got an unexpected surprise; an arctic fox was making its way down the cliff looking for eggs to steal. It seemed fairly used to humans and casually trotted past them on its way to the next bird nest.

I had an early night to prepare for the long drive back to Reykjavik tomorrow.