Next visit to the westfjords for Guðný and me was the opposite end of the westfjords: Norðurfjörður. We took Paula with us, driving from Staðaskáli up the eastern road to Hólmavík. We stopped for our last hot meal and some groceries, and set up our campervan from Camper Iceland near the Norðurfjörður harbour to wait for our boat the next morning. We took a dip at Krossneslaug before falling asleep, and then shuttled out to Látravík at Hornbjarg bright and early with Gjá Strandferðir.

Our plan was to spend one day around the Hornbjarg cliffs, hiking to the famous Kálfatindar and finding some puffins to oogle. It was raining when we arrived and foggy when we finally set up camp, but in between we got a break in the clouds and sunshine right on time for our bird watching and cliff climbing.

We camped beside the Ferðafélag íslands hut near the lighthouse, and got invited into the hut by a group of Icelandic friends. They were having a small party, and invited us for a warm chicken and rice dinner, chocolate cake and wine – all we did in exchange was wash some dishes!

The next 3 days, we were meant to make our way south to Reykjafjörður, but a storm was brewing and the wardens warned us to get to shelter no later than the next night. So after an easy 16km day with no packs, we now had to make it nearly 40km with packs in 36 hours. It wasn´t an option to sit and wait for the storm, and then wait it out, at the lighthouse, so we headed off optimistically. We made it 18km that day, camping at Barðsvík and crossing its beautiful beach around midnight.

We waited for low tide the next morning to make it out and around the fjord to Bolungarvík, and all the way into the bottom of Furufjörður where we met a nice local family. They directed us to the best place to cross the river, as the glacier melt from Drangsjökull would now start to affect our hike. We had to make it up and over to Þaralátursfjörður where the most threatening glacier river awaited, and we waded over it nearly waist high merely hours before it flooded and became impassable.

Our home stretch was to get up and over to Reykjafjörður, where we dropped down into a field of Kria birds, angrily protecting their nests as the wind and rain picked up. We got into a hut around 8:30 or 9, soaked to the bone, and jumped into the pool to watch the full force of the storm swing in by 10:30.

For the next 3 days, the entire Hornstrandir Nature reserve was on lock down, all hiking shut down and hikers ordered to seek shelter. We spent our 4 nights in the coziest of shelters, and I felt a pang of guilt for the others I knew were only in some lightless, unheated emergency shelters.

We didn´t quite have enough food for 3 extra days, but we had neighbours in the valley to befriend. We exchanged work for food with a man named Hallgrímur, who was painting the inside of his house, and we received no less than boiled arctic char and reindeer meat for our time. We bathed twice daily, played cards and read books, in no rush to leave.

When the boat could finally pick us up, the seas calmed, but remained brown, and many of the poor Kria nests had flooded and drowned the younglings. We said goodbye to our new friends and promised to come back and see the house we helped paint, and even if the weather was good, try to get stuck and stay a while.