Day 10: Rif to Reykjavik

It looked like quite a sunny day when we woke up in Rif this morning. As we were checking out of the apartment, I realised rather belatedly that there was an amazing view of the Snæfellsjökull volcano from around the corner of the car park.

Today was the final day of our road trip, so the plan was to drive around the southern edge of the Snæfellsnes peninsula, and then back to Reykjavik. Our route led us through the Snæfellsnes national park, which mostly looked like a huge lava field in the shadow of the volcano.

The first stop on our itinerary was a place called Öndverðarnes, which is located at the westernmost point of the peninsula.

The road here was gravel and a bit bumpy, so we got out and went the last section to the very end of the peninsula by foot.

We passed by some beautiful cliffs...

...before arriving at the Svörtuloft lighthouse right at the end.

The lighthouse is a very bright orange - you definitely can't miss it!

There were some great views out to sea from here.

Unfortunately, though, it looked like the day might not be staying sunny for long!

We drove on through another lava field.

Our next stop was the beach at Djúpalónssandur.  In contrast to the sandy beach we visited yesterday, this is a beach of black pebbles.

To get to the beach you have to follow a rocky path which leads through some strange lava shapes.

I particularly liked this one which had a window in it

Once you get down to the beach, you realise that it is littered with bits of rusted metal.

These are the remains of the Epine, a fishing trawler from Grimsby which was wrecked here in 1948. The metal has been left on the beach as a memorial, and it's quite eerie to see.

The beach is in a beautiful location, although the black pebbles are quite hard work to walk on!

Our next stop was the small village of Arnarstapi. The weather had really deteriorated by this point though, so by the time we arrived there it was pretty wet.

There is a walking trail which you can follow along the coast here, with views out over the cliffs.

There are some really unusual rock formations here.

I think people also come here for bird watching, although September isn't really the time of year for it. I was quite relieved that there weren't many birds around, because I'd read some reviews of people complaining they'd been attacked by aggressive arctic terns!

As you can see, we were a bit damp by this point so we didn't follow the path in its entirety. 

We did walk a little further to find this beautiful rocky arch though

Then it was back in the car, to dry out and progress a bit further along the peninsula. We stopped briefly at a place called Búðir, where there is a striking black church in the middle of nowhere. 

After Búðir, the weather thankfully began to brighten up a bit again.

In fact, the closer we got back towards the Ring Road, the sunnier it became

Our last stop was at the Gerðuberg cliffs.

These are a collection of enormous basalt columns.

They were really quite striking to see

Soon after that, we rejoined the Ring Road and drove the final short stretch back into Reykjavik. What I hadn't realised in advance was that at one point, the road would take us through a 7km-long tunnel under the sea, in order to cut out a long detour around a fjord!

Reykjavik seemed huge in comparison to the places we've been over the past few nights! We are staying in the same small apartment place as last time, so we drove there first to unload our stuff, and then went back to the car rental place, where we successfully handed back the car without any problems The apartment is fine again for one night, except that the internet isn't working as well as it did when we stayed before, so doing the blog has been slightly problematic!

We were pretty hungry after all our adventures, so walked into the centre of Reykjavik in search of food.

We ended up having exactly the same meals in exactly the same place as last Sunday; Hawaiian pizza for me and fish and chips for Tim

Then there was just time for a last look at the iconic Hallgrimmskirkja, before heading back to the apartment to battle the Wi-Fi!