Had a good buffet breakfast at the hotel and headed off to seek out the Puffin. The morning is cool with partly clouding skies. The Puffin peninsula is just a short distance from the hotel, but you had to be ferried two miles to it in a tractor-pull hay cart (no hay). Once we got to the peninsula, we hiked up a steep sand mound which was very fine black (volcanic) sand. It was probably only 100 yards, but I was exhausted by the time we got to the top. The area around the peninsula is waste land of volcanic ash. We were told it once was fertile farm land, but an eruption hundreds of years ago changed that.
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| Peninsula in background |
There were many Puffins on the cliffs. The guides said we were very lucky. The Puffins were getting ready to kick the chicks out of the nest. The Puffins spend winter on the Atlantic, returning in the Spring to have new families. The Puffins let us walk up as close as six feet.
We hike around the top of the peninsula before heading back down. A total of 1.3 miles.
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| Their beaks turn grey in the winter |
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| Going Down A Lot Easier |
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| Hay wagon |
Next to the Skaftajafell National Park where we were fitted with our glacier hiking shoes and ice picks. Then we took a leisurely 5.5 mile walk up the mountain.
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| Sheep outside our hotel window |
Tomorrow is the glacier hike, but we were warned at dinner that the weather forecast is for high winds which may cancel our trip.
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