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Published: September 4th 2015
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Tuesday 28th July
We are staying for two nights here at the Hotel Alfheimar in Bakkagerdi, to allow us to have an acclimatisation day before setting off on our trek tomorrow. As we were driving north from Egilsstadir yesterday afternoon there was a range of prominent peaks on our right. They are had snow-capped summits but their summits were also in the clouds most of the time. Depending on the weather, today's walk may have attempted to go to the summit of one of those peaks, but this morning it seemed clear that the summits were going to stay in the clouds for most of the day so instead we did a circular walk going partially up to the summit ridge.
We had breakfast in the hotel at 8am and then made ourselves a packed lunch from the ham, cheese etc available on the breakfast buffet. At about 9am we set off for a 10 mile leisurely hike, returning at about 3:30pm. After 3 days sitting in the minibus and getting out just to look at scenic landscapes, it was good to walk up a hill. There were plenty of snow drifts; Oskar told us that Iceland was having
an unusually cool summer and that normally these snowdrift would have disappeared by July. The hiking season in Iceland is roughly May to September and outside that period large areas of upland are covered in snow and many of the 'gravel' roads are impassable. The mountain huts that we would be staying overnight at on our trek are also normally open only for those five months.
Iceland has no indigenous large mammals. The country was uninhabited until about the 9th century AD when it was settled by the Vikings who brought with them sheep, cattle and reindeer from Scandinavia. The Norse settlers also brought with them horses. These horses have been found to have genetic similarities to Mongolian horses and it is thought that horses from Mongolia may have been imported into Russia and from there into Scandanavia, and hence to Iceland. By the 10th century the Icelandic parliament had prohibited any further importation of horses from anywhere, so the current Icelandic horse has been pure bred for over 1000 years from those initial imports. Horses were venerated by the Norse people and modern Icelanders are very fond of their horses. As you drive around Iceland it is common
to see many fields of horses and horse-trekking is a popular tourist attraction here.
After a brief rest and time take off our walking boots, we got back into the minibus for the short drive to Bakkagerdi harbour. The harbour is on the other side of the bay from the village, about 2 km away, sheltered by an island called Hafnarholmi. However it wasn't the boats that we had come to see, but rather the bird life, because Hafnarholmi is considered to be probably the best place in Iceland to see puffins, and since the puffin is the national emblem of Iceland, that should make it even more special. We were not to be disappointed; there were hundreds of puffins, only metres away from the harbour on top of a small hill. Viewing platforms and ladders have been installed there which makes it easy to get close enough to the birds to give excellent views and photographic opportunities. Kittiwakes are also abundant around the same rock.
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