Campervan Adventures in Iceland: Day 15 - Snæfellsnes - Gerðuberg Cliffs, Ytri Tunga, Bjarnarfoss, Búðakirkja, Rauðfeldsgjá

Day 15 was another gorgeous day! We got up and headed out to start exploring Snæfellsnes Peninsula. We had planned two days for this so we were going to see what we got to and do the rest the following day. 

First stop was the Gerðuberg Cliffs - an outcrop of columnar basalt!

This was a fairly quick stop -just walked the length of them and back which didn't take that much time. Then we headed off to Ytri Tunga 

With a quick stop Staðarstaður

Ytri Tunga was beautiful and where you can see lots of fat seals!

There are seals out there, but you can't really see them in the photo. 

Seals swimming around

Lots of little birds in the surf

And Common Eider

Then it was back to the car to our next stop - Bjarnarfoss

There was a nice trail to a bridge going over the river, but then the "trail" was just straight up the side of the mountain!

You could climb pretty far up until you reached the snow, though it was difficult to take a photo as there was not much room to do so!

Though there was a lady who we first saw at the cliffs and she was following the same itinerary as us, though faster, and she caught up to us here and got to this spot just after us so she took a photo for us, though it was a bit precarious...she headed off right after and we saw her at the next stop when she was leaving. 

You could see forever

The next stop was just across the street - Búðakirkja

I had read you could do some hikes from here and there was a crater, Búðaklettur, you could walk to so we set off

You walk through all this old lava and it is just beautiful!

Where we stopped for lunch after finding some non-mossy places to sit

The side of the crater

After walking around the edge of the crater a bit the first stop was Búðahellir

A small cave with super bright green moss

The views from the top of the crater were insane! So so so gorgeous! Like we were surrounded by mountains with a little bit of water on one side. This was one of the best viewpoints of the trip - definitely a highligh and we saw no one else out there! The trail looked like it wasn't used often and pople are really missing out. Yes, you can see all the mountains from the ground and driving around, but this was magical. I think most people are not in Iceland as long as we were and have limited time so I imagine that is why more people don't come out here. 

There is a waterfall close to center of this photo - that is Bjarnarfoss that we hiked up!

Heading back towards the car

Next up was Rauðfeldsgjá Gorge. 

You hike up and go in that small crack in the rocks

You can walk in a ways through the water and I know it doesn't look that bad, but it was a ton of quick-moving water and we decided not to try it out. Most people just went to here then turned around (this was not that far into the gorge). There was one lady who went for it through! It was also very scratchy rocks and I had already gotten a billion tiny cuts on my hands just going here so this was far enough for us. 

A quicker stop than we expected, and didn't get wet since we didn't go through the water up the waterfalls, but still fun! 

Then it was off to Campsite Ólafsvík for the night

Which was a really nice campsite. The people were friendly, the area was beautiful, it had wifi, all in all a great place to relax. We ate dinner outside and enjoyed all the sun! Snæfellsnes Penninsula was really one of the highlights of the trip. Everywhere you look it was just gorgeous! Just driving around, like in the East Fjords and South East, was just beautiful! We spent two days in this area, but we definitely could have spent more. 

Today we walked 15km total