Reykjavík Grapevine - ágú. 2020, Blaðsíða 36

Bienvenido to the Costa de Westfjords.
Swap sandals for hiking boots, bikinis
for anoraks, and ice-cold sangria for
flasks of steaming coffee. And for the
love of god, give up on any dreams of
a sun tan.
Escape to the country
Gazing out of the office window on a
drizzly Monday morning, I watch as
tourists in ridiculously oversized pac-
a-macs flee to safety of the nearest
cafe. It’s early August, a period I would
usually spend passed out on a Span-
ish beach, but for obvious reasons this
year is a different story.
Throughout the week my vitamin D
deprived brain is haunted by dreams
of golden sands and azure seas and so
at 9:00 on a Saturday morning, I drag
the Grapevine’s resident photo wizard
Art Bicnick on the ultimate summer
road trip: a 6-hour drive to the wild,
wild Westfjords, a mere 440 kilome-
tres away.
First stop on the itinerary? Ice
cream.
In one of the most remote regions in
an already sparsely populated country,
Erpssta!ir is a rare culinary oasis. Yes,
it would’ve made more sense to enjoy
an ice cream when we’d reached our
coastal destination, but as I rapidly
learn, in the Icelandic countryside, you
get your food whenever you can. And
when the ice cream is made onsite by
a farmer named Einar using rhubarb,
blueberries and meadowsweet from
the surrounding hills, how can you
refuse?
The clue’s in the name
Attempting not to spill ice cream in
the rental car, we hit the road once
more. Before long we reach a causeway
across a moody blue fjord—we are now
officially entering Iceland’s least-visit-
ed region, the Westfjords. From here
the broad highways of the south are
replaced with winding, gravel-covered
roads and the further we travel, the
worse the weather gets. As we near our
final destination, the scenery is all but
obscured from view by an impossibly
thick fog, until we turn a bend in the
road and the clouds suddenly miracu-
lously part to reveal Rau!isandur.
Unlike its more famous cousin
Reynisfjara, Rau!isandur matured out
of its emo phase. In a country famed
for its black sands, Rau!isandur is,
as the name would suggest, a copper-
toned outlier. Thanks to a relatively
thin layer of pulverised scallop shells,
the beach’s colouring morphs depend-
ing on light conditions. Today, under
a strip of weak sun peaking out be-
tween ominous clouds, the sands are
a soft ochre, contrasting dramatically
against the dark cliffs and deep tur-
quoise Atlantic. After the highway’s
unfalteringly drab colour palette of
greys, greens, yellows and blacks, the
idyllic scene almost seems artificial.
A zeal for seals
Something about the Westfjords re-
leases my inner child (though admit-
tedly she’s never far from the surface),
so when I read the word “seals” on a
wildlife information board, I let out
an involuntary squeal. I now have one
mission in life and I politely inform
my ever-patient travelling companion
Art that we cannot leave Rau!isandur
until I have seen a seal. Yes, I’ve spot-
ted them swimming in the murky wa-
ters of Reykjavík’s harbour a hundred
times, but this is different, I explain,
becoming more impassioned by the
minute.
Eventually he gives in and we set
out across the sandbar towards the
lair of the mighty mammals, some two
kilometres away.
Around twenty minutes into the
trek, another childhood emotion re-
surfaces: a deep-seated fear of being
stranded at sea spawned by an ill-fated
family picnic. “Did you check the tide
times?” I ask trying to keep the panic
out of my voice. Art shrugs and con-
tinues to stroll along at a painfully
slow speed; he clearly has never had
his sandwich cruelly snatched away by
a rogue wave.
The only distraction from my sense
of impending doom is a fun little
game I like to call “Is it a seal or is it a
rock?” On the 50th round, the answer
is finally the former. One of the dark
mounds suddenly flops off a neigh-
bouring sandbar and into the rapidly
rising waters.
Before us are around 50 seals, more
than my inner 7-year-old can handle
and by far outnumbering the number
of people we have seen since our arriv-
al in the Westfjords. Quest complete,
we turn back, but though we may have
finished examining them, the seals are
not finished with us. We are escorted
back to the safety of dry land by an
inquisitive convey of glistening black
heads bobbing in and out of the water.
Where the puffins at?
The moment we clamber back into the
car, the rain resumes as if some good-
tempered equally seal-loving god had
held off the downpour on our behalf.
The weather steadily deteriorates as
we drive back over roads half-sub-
merged in rusty-hued puddles towards
our quite literal port in the storm: Ho-
tel Brei!avík.
The next morning, after a hearty
breakfast, we venture back out into the
rain towards the final stop of our ad-
venture: Látrabjarg, the westernmost
point in Iceland and, if you forget the
Azores (which we do), the westernmost
point in the whole of Europe.
A small squat lighthouse perches
on the cliff, modestly marking the
landmark, as the Atlantic stretches
Travel distance
from Reykjavík:
440 km
Accomodation:
breidavik.is
Car provided by:
!ocarrental.is
It’s Pronounced
Brei!avík Not Benidorm
A “tropical” weekend !etaway to the Westfjords
Words: Poppy Askham Photos: Art Bicnick
Travel
Mmmm... guano
It's pu"n adorable!
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36The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 06— 2020