As the trip so far as been very full on with lots of walking, we decided to have a relaxing morning and do something we had seen during our YouTube research – a beer spa! The experience starts in the outdoor wooden hottubs with views over Hrísey island, the mountains and Þorvalds valley. Then the fun part – bathing in a big tub filled with beer, water, hops and yeast. You cannot drink this water, but you get your own beer tap and it’s drink as much as you can in half hour. Bet Santa is gutted he’s missed out on this 🎅🏻 After the bath it’s to the relaxation room for a further half hr where you get wrapped up in a blanket and left to chill. This is a shared room so I had to try and be quiet for 30 whole mins! As we were in a beer establishment it would be rude to not sample any, so Mark got himself a beer flight and I enjoyed a Pepsi Max as the nominated driver 🤣 his favourite was the IPA. I had a taste of the sour and it was probably one of the worst things I’ve ever had in my mouth.
After the spa we headed back towards where we stayed last night to explore the town of Akureyri, the 2nd largest city in Iceland and known as the capital of the North. Although we have eaten well this trip, we decided to treat ourselves to some lunch and stopped at a lovely cafe for eggs, bacon and avocado. As it was a Saturday, it meant the parking was free! So we used our saved small fortune to get a slice of carrot cake as well.
Akureyri is full of cafés, bars and shops, as well as street art, botanical gardens and an interesting looking church. It has its own airport and you can get to pretty much everything in the North in a day’s worth of driving. Just as we were leaving I spotted a discount 66°N shop, the brand all the locals love.. so I treated myself to the cheapest hat!
As the plan is to head to the Westfjords tomorrow we decided to get as close as possible and find a campsite there. But with so much driving it was only right that we had a few stops along the way. The first one being Grafarkirkja – the oldest turf church in Iceland (much to Mark’s delight!) You can no longer get into the church due to preservation purposes, but you are able to walk around the turf ring site. You can still smell that ‘old church smell’ in the air. It looks so tiny with the towering mountains behind and there is something so charming about it that you can’t help turning round every 5 minutes on the walk back to the car for another look.
The last stop on the agenda was Hvítserkur – a 15m tall sea stack. Legend has it that it’s actually a petrified troll, turned into stone by the daylight as he tried to ruin the local church bells. Whether it’s this, or just sea erosion, it’s a fantastic place to visit, especially in the evening as you get the most beautiful light.
We finally made it to our home for the night, a lovely little campsite next to the water, equipped with 2 hottubs to sit and enjoy a beer after a long day driving.
The Travelling Ginger 