Day 5 – Boat trip to the Westman Isles

I love visiting little islands so when I realised we could take a boat to Heimaey (the largest Island in the Westman Isles) we were going to go. The ferry left from Landeyjahöfn which was just under an hour from our house and we decided not to take the car on the ferry as it was quite expensive and we thought we could just walk everywhere.

The first thing we wanted to do was to climb Eldfell – the volcano which erupted in 1973 and almost destroyed the harbour. It was quite a difficult climb as the ground was full of loose rocks and stones.

^{The summit of Eldfell with the harbour behind Stu}

We then walked across the Island to the west coast to look at some of the smaller inhabited islands – and were wishing that we had brought the car!

^{Islands off the coast of Heimaey}

We walked back into the town as we wanted to visit the Puffin Rescue Centre. They had quite a few exhibits but the highlight was definitely the rescue puffin who lived there as he was really playful. He had loads of toys and Tom & Izzy spent ages interacting with him!

^{The friendly puffin}

We then headed back to the port for our ferry back to Iceland.

Day 6 – Landmannalaugar

A friend had recommended we visit Landmannalaugar which is in the highlands and has hot springs. It was not the easiest of drives as it was over 2 hours away and lots of driving on gravel tracks.

The scenery in Landmannalaugar was stunning – full of orange volcanic rocks and wild flowers.

^{Landmannalaugar}

When we arrived there was a fjord to cross but I wouldn’t let Stu drive through it so we parked up and walked to the hot springs. We got changed and went in. The springs have hot water going into them from the lava and also cold water from a river so depending which way you swam determined the temperature.

^{Landmannalaugar hot springs}

We then did a short hike as the weather was beautiful before driving home.

^{Landmannalaugar}