Friday 4 May 2018

Black beauty - Dyrhólaey

Iceland’s tourist motto is ‘the land of fire and ice’. Active volcanoes and immense glaciers define its landscape. One of the many visible results of those volcanoes are the black sand beaches. You’ll see them at almost all coastlines. Another feature of the past eruptions is the abundance of basalt: a volcanic rock that forms during the cooling of lava.

The black beach of Reynisfjara towards Dyrhóleay 

Near the town of Vík, at Reynisfjara and Dyrhóleay, both features guarantee an impressive landscape. The unpredictable waves crashing at the black beach of Reynisfjara make a cool lookout towards the cliffs of Dyrhóleay.

Looking over Reynisfjara beach from Dyrhóleay 

The next exit off the ring road leads to Dyrhóleay. A steep (officially 4x4 only) winding road leads towards the top where the lighthouse is built. You can walk around it to the cliffs.

Dyrhóleay lighthouse

Looking toward the see you’ll see the double arch. Dyrhóleay means door hill island. The big arch (120m) can be a door for ships, or even planes, to go though. The black basalt is splattered in white bird droppings. Depending on the time of year an abundance of migrating or nesting sea bird can be seen.

Basalt arch

We saw mostly gulls flying around and nesting on the cliffs. Hundreds of them. Occasionally we saw a little flock of darker birds. Those were common guillemots.

Nesting gulls

Of course we were hoping to spot some puffins too. But we visited in late April, and the puffin season only starts mid May. Even so we scanned all cliffs with our binoculars. While walking back to the car we suddenly saw a little black spot moving in the grass edge next to the path. Not even two meters from us was that one delightful little puffin we were hoping for! After a minute it tumbled down the cliff but we saw it. Up close and personal.

Found a puffin!