Suprisingly We were all ready, tents struck, breakfast eaten all cleared up snd cook tent packed to leave at 7am!
We visited Arnartapi to see the basalt cliffs and the guardian of Snaefell, Barbara represented by a sculpture there.
We headed north from Reykjavik to follow the west coast Sea to the left and mountains to the right. Old lava flows now covered by centuries of moss evident at regular intervals to remind us how volcanic Iceland is.
We stopped for lunch at the small harbour and admired the views over our sandwiches.
On to the shark museum to try the delicacy of Greenl
and shark meat. This has to be cured for 6 months to become edible. Essentially the meat is poison as it has a mixture of urine and “anti freeze ” going through it. Not how to entice you to eat it! The meat is cut into slabs and stored in wooden crates for a couple of months to allow the urine to change to ammonia- still not very enticing. Then it is hung up to airdry for a few more months. This gets rid of the ammonia. After this it can be eaten as a snack.
Now we were warned off this by our tour guide. He told us how his father in law had waited till he was eating it to tell him how it was produced. He said not to eat it, that it tasted as you’d expect- of urine. Not so! I admit I did carefully observe the guide and the previous group eating it first. Several people had a second piece, so that decided me, yes it was edible and tasted ok!
Finally we drove through some lava fields and stopped for photos. After the lava cools first comes the lichen then the moss. Several centuries later they look like these.
Last stop our campground for tonight. The luxury of a bar and at 1000kr a 500ml can lager I’d quite reasonable for Iceland. The showers are outside but in a cubicle which unfortunately I didn’t realise till too late.
Cook tent up, tents up a beer, food and another early night for 6am breakfast.
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