Flateyri

Guðný and I lived together all winter, but rarely saw each other due to work, travel and other normal things pre-covid life. When summer came around, she moved back to her countryside farm and we had to make a 3 part summer adventure plan to make sure we wouldn´t miss eachother too much.

a bonfire for the summer solstice in Önundafjörður

Part 1 took us to a yoga retreat in Önundafjörður, hosted by the lovely Iris and Andrea behind jógabíllin, the yoga campervan that drove around Iceland in May giving everyone free, outdoor yoga classes. We stayed at Hotel Holt Inn and practiced yoga on the nearby pier, and extended our stay in Önundarfjörður with an extra night at Flateyri. There we stayed in the most beautiful home, a recycled work in progress by the talented designer Halfdán Pedersen.

´fishing´at Flateyri harbour

To drive all the way to Flateyri for only a weekend was ambitious, so we added a few nights of adventures before and after the yoga retreat. We started on the southern and western ends of the Westfjords, bathing 3 times on some days in natural hot springs. Our first dip was at Guðrunarlaug at Laugar in Sælingsdalur.

Rauðisandur at 11pm

We camped at Rauðisandur beach and spent some time with the birds at Látrabjarg. We weaved our way thru all the small towns, Patreksfjörður, Tálknafjörður and Bíldudalur, and stopped for amazing coffee at Simbahöllin in Þingeyri.

the cliffs at Látrabjarg

We visited Dynjandi, more than once, and camped another night at Selárdalur after visiting Hrafnseyri, the museum dedicated to Icelandic hero Jón Sigurðsson.

sunset at Selárdalur

On our way home from the westfjords, we shortened the drive by taking the ferry from Bjarnslækur to Flatey, where the ferry Baldur would continue on with our car to Stykkisholmur, but we could jump out for the night and stay at Hotel Flatey. The weather was misty and cold when we checked in, but it didn´t discourage us from going for a seaswim. T

our view from Hotel Flatey

he next day was as sunny as summer weather gets, so we held a pop-up yoga class and invited the whole island. That only too a short walk, and with a turnout of nearly 20, it was almost 100% attendance from the island´s inhabitants.

I´ve been to the westfjords before, and the remote, uninhabited Hornstrandir has been pulling on my heart all summer. The problem is, summer hasn´t really arrived yet, with snowfall in June and average temperatures of around 6°C around the westfjords. Hiking for days with enough supplies for a winter expedition didn´t seem appealing, so I put together a last minute road trip instead.

the old school in Ólafsdalur

I drove from Reyjavik to Isafjörður in one day with a french couchsurfer/hitchhiker I call Tony. We drove in pretty much a straight line, except for one detour to Ólafsdalur, since its location, in Gilsfjörður, is the fjord that separates the Western Iceland and Westfjords districts. We crossed into the Westfjords and then the real adventure began – hunting down hottubs, and hotdogs, while avoiding the hundreds of runners taking part in the marathon festival we didn´t know was going on.

the only windmill in Iceland, looking down at the westjords from Vígur island

I killed a baby Eider duck and still feel remorse over it, which wasn´t helped by the fact that two passing roadtrippers stopped be just to wail and scream about this baby duck they saw me murder in cold blood, as if I had done it on purpose. The road was supper narrow and swerving would have either put me into the ocean or head on into their car.

desserted farms turned summerhouses at the end of the world, Skálavík

After trying and failing to get into the country´s smallest hottub (its now locked by the landowners), not feeling enticed by Reykjaneslaug (filled with 30 middle aged Germans), we passed by the little pool on the side road down Mjóifjörður and realized someone had just started refilling it. We jumped in, but left before it was filled, in fear of having to make someone else share that magical space.

turf houses in Bolungarvik

I camped a night in the rain in Tungudalur, and picked up a new roadtrip companion the next morning at the Isafjörður airport. We spent the day in Bolungarvík, driving to the end of the road to Skálavík. I lost 5000ISK at the Bolungarvik swimming pool, but it was still worth it – their dry sauna is spa worthy.

colourful Flateyri

We spent the rest of our Westfjords trip unable to leave Flateyri. Once an isolated, lonely little fishing village, an avalanche in 1994 nearly emptied the settlement. It wasn´t until a tunnel was built in 1996 (connecting it to Isafjörður all year round in under 20 minutes) that people really fought to stay, but a few years later, real life was breathed back into this dwindling town.

Hálfdan catching the first cod at 23:00

Hálfdan Pedersen bought a house back in early 2000´s after scouting it out on movie production. There was a roof, but no floor, and snow fell in through the glassless windows into the bedrooms downstairs. He bought it for 5000kr. Now the home is featured in architecture books and home design magazines, and a trail of artsy and alternative lifestyle seeking Icelander´s have trickled in behind him.

Huldar Breiðfjörð, an Icelander who walked the whole wall of China and author of ´Múrinn í Kína,´ has a summer house in Flateyri. A man named Eyþór, photographer and filmmaker, also runs the oldest continually open shop in Iceland in Flateyri. Dagur Sigurðsson, coach of the men´s German Handball European champions in 2016, is currently renovating a house there. Designer Kórmakur of Kormákur & Sköldur men´s clothing has a bunch of homes there, and other film industry and random health-food/dietician stylists are also in the mix. All this in a town of only a couple hundred people.

Fishing under a midnight sun in Önunda

We were going to visit Hálfdan and his family, and went fishing in the fjord to catch dinner with him on the only sunny evening I can remember in July. Hálfdan and his partners run and own the only bar in town, Vagninn, and his chef was throwing her 50th birthday party that weekend. We weren´t actually invited to it, but Linda P was, and making the comment that even Linda P is attending is always brushed aside as a joke. The weekend we were there, we shared Hálfdans design home with Linda Petursdottir, Miss World 1988, and that sealed the deal: Flateyri is really the place for anyone who´s anyone to be in the westfjords.