Travel Iceland with Iceland Travel Travel the North - West North-West Iceland is defined primarily by the coastal areas around Húnaflói Bay and Skagafjörður Fjord. You can bypass most of this area by sticking to the Ring Road (Rte. 1) as, sadly, most people do. Among the things they are missing are seal-watching at Vatnsnes Peninsula, a 19th century stone church at Þingeyrar, Iceland’s bestpreserved 19th century farm buildings at Glaumbær, the seat of Iceland’s northern bishopric in the Catholic era at Hólar, and a stack of pretty lakes, waterfalls, rivers and peaks. THE ICELANDIC HORSE Skagafjörður is known for wonderful horse breeding and you will find numerous farms offering horse back riding and shows in the area. The Icelandic Viking horse is renowned for being sturdy, independent, friendly, spirited and sure-footed. The Icelandic horse possesses five natural gaits: the Walk, Trot, Canter, Tolt, and Pace. The tolt is a fifth gait specific to only a handful of breeds in the world and provides a smooth ride that feels like gliding. In fact, riders often demonstrate this smooth gait by carrying a tray of drinks at full speed without spilling a drop!
Skagafjörður links the Arctic Ocean with the highlands and is an area central to Icelandic history and culture. It is the site of significant events during the 13th century civil war and of key cultural developments in the centuries afterwards. There are several large
94
glacial rivers in Skagafjörður that are ideal for river rafting. If your journey is bypassing Skagafjörður via the Ring Road (Rte. 1) then one of the most striking landscapes you’ll see as you cross between the North and the North West is in the Öxnadalur Valley near Hraun. Keep your eyes on the mountain tops on the northern side of the valley and you’ll see the stunning serrated outline of a mountain ridge, reminiscent of Catalonia’s aptly named Montserrat (‘serrated mountain’). The highest pinnacle is called Hraundrangi (1,075m / 3,526ft), where climbers have found the flat area at the top to be less than half a square meter! The fishing hamlet of Hofsós, halfway up Skagafjörður’s eastern shore off Rte. 76, was a trading post as far back at the 1500s and later became a launching point for many of Iceland’s emigrants to North America. Many of these emigrants’ descendants still return to Hofsós to visit its Emigration TRAVEL THE NORTH WEST
