Thingvellir National Park and Snaefellsnes Peninsula

In the morning we toured the Thingvellir National Park. This is an important site as it was the location of the first parliament established in 930 and remaining here until 1798. The park was founded in 1930 to mark the 1000 th anniversary. It is also a location where you can see the continental plates are pulling apart.

Our plan for the day was to head north to the Snaefellsnes Peninsula.

We did take the long way around the fjord and not the tunnel shortcut and we also took 40 km loop on the dirt roads towards the west coast to see the wetlands. Here you can see a lot of the famous Icelandic horses.

After you get out onto the Peninsula you head for the national park.

We were just inside the Snaefellsjoekull National Park and driving down a side road to see a waterfall we found the 800 has a low rear tire.

We pumped it back up, but when we check it again in 10 k it was low again. At least we had a pullout off the road to change the tire. Inspecting the tube dry we could not find a hole and we could see nothing inside or outside on the tire. We put in a new tube and headed off.

Driving along there are often signs and parking lots and you never know what you might find. Some are boring duds, but some are awesome like the bird wall at Vatnshellir Cave where we saw our second Puffin.

The volcanic peak dominates the park. The Snaefellsjokull glacier sits on top of an active volcano that is 4745 ft. We in fact saw its snow covered peak from Reykjavik about 200 away as the crow flies. Here you ride around the base of the volcano. On the north side we came across another small crater that you can hike to the top of in about 10 minutes.

Continuing on we drove thru an area with bird flight warning signs and they really mean it.

We were about 4 km from the campsite and Dan’s tire was low again.

He pumped it up and limped to the camping. Here when we took the tube out it was almost shredded and at about 10 cm from the valve. Looking at the tire there was noting! We tried to really compress it at that spot and finally saw a metal shard peaking thru. Like a sliver in your skin it took some effort to get it out. The new tube was toast, but Dan was able to patch up the old one once we had some soapy water on it you could identify the tiny punctures.

This was quite a day for our 19 th wedding anniversary, but I still managed to pull off a nice dinner for the “sun set” at almost midnight.