Back to the Westfjords

Today is my last day in Reykjavik (I could write a lot about how sad and weird it feels but I will save the soppy stuff for when I'm an emotional wreck tomorrow morning). My parents arrived six days ago for one last visit to Iceland, and also to help me take my vast amount of luggage home. If I'm honest, it feels very strange having my parents here, almost like I'm a child being collected at the end of a school trip, but it's nice to show them Iceland and extremely useful for getting my stuff home!

For my last trip in Iceland, we travelled to the Westfjords, the place where this whole adventure began for me. It was great to go back, even if the weather was awful for almost the entire time we were there!

It was lovely returning to Núpur, where I spent my first three weeks on a language course, and showing my parents that I really was living in the middle of nowhere. We also returned to many places I'd been before including Ísafjörður and Dynjandi waterfall.

However, it was great to go to the most Southerly parts of the Westfjords as I had not been here before. Here, there are huge sandy beaches and it barely looks like Iceland anymore.

We stayed in a tiny hut next to a remote beach which had amazing views. We also had sheep from the local farm knocking on our door in the middle of the night.

We visited Látrabjarg cliffs to watch the birds. It's known for having loads of puffins but after several hours of walking there, we only managed to see one.

We did, however, witness the local farmers taking the wild birds' eggs by using a pulley system to lower each other down the cliffs. My immediate reaction was that it was a horrible thing to do; it's illegal to take wild bird's eggs in Britain. However, I don't actually know how much worse it is than taking chicken eggs. It's a very old tradition so it was interesting to see anyway.

Rather him than me.

One of the most challenging parts of the Westfjords is the road conditions. The roads are long and winding anyway but right now they are in awful condition after the winter. Walls of snow line many of the roads and they are largely covered in potholes.

So now I'm back in Reykjavik, packing up my life here and getting ready to leave. I'm glad I could have one last trip to the Westfjords. I had the most amazing first three weeks there and it seemed like a suitable way to finish my whole experience.