The wayside diaries week 8: between the fjords 🪨

On overcoming fear and finding awe in Iceland's remote northwest corner.

We crested a short, slippery hill and the road snaked out before us, a single dark streak cutting through the white; gravel, and ice. Lots of ice. We’d chosen the unwaymarked road, the one with no winter service. Why?

Curiosity, probably. Or stupidity.

Iceland’s road network featured many sections of gravel road, and while we generally enjoyed them our van did not like them one bit. This particular one scared the absolute shit out of me.

Just when you think the road conditions can’t get any more challenging here- they do. From high winds and snow drifts, thinking the rain would bring warmer weather but instead bringing slippery ice, to thinking snow would provide relief but instead coating the icy road in perilously slippery powder. Every day brings a new peril.

It just took one word to set my nervous system off: “slippery”. It was a simple observational comment from Ben, but suddenly memories came flooding back; of driving around that fateful corner, of being stuck on that sheer mountain road in Türkiye with my foot jammed on the brake pedal for two hours, waiting for help. I started shaking uncontrollably in the passenger seat, tears welling in my eyes, breathing heavy despite Ben’s comforting hand on my lap. It didn’t matter that our van hadn’t slid off the mountain that day; the threat had been real enough to traumatise me, even years later here in Iceland. I relived that moment again and again on each icy winter road.

So why was I here?

I loved the cold, the snow, the adventure and the challenge. And I didn’t want my fear to hold me back from enjoying those things that made me feel most alive. A curious contradiction, I know.

We stopped at the last shop to stock up before we would head way, way up into the country’s northwestern corner where there were nothing more than settlements and outposts, and amenities were few and far between. They mainly sold dried fish and crampons, but we managed to get a soft onion and some brown bananas.

We were heading into the Westfjords, the least populated area of the least densely populated country in Europe. A series of fjords, peninsulas and fishing harbours– and of course, hot springs.

We left behind the relative bustle of Búðardalur (pronounced Bah-dur-da-lur by us and always sung to the tune of ‘Mahna Mahna’); we’d enjoyed our refuge by the abandoned playground of a school-come-hotel, though the morning necessitated some roadside mechanics in the snow, namely bodging our propshaft bearing back together with some garden hose and cable ties.

However this ingenious solution still didn’t remove the vibration that loomed ominously beneath us as we ventured 140km north into the fjords, limited to 60km/h.

The mountains soon opened up into a sweeping, empty plain just a few miles up the road, the land punctuated only by a church and a farm. We crossed fjord after fjord over causeway after causeway, stopping only to snap photos in the biting cold wind. The black rock landscape, grey sky and sea where occasionally interrupted in their monochromatism by a sweep of vibrant green grasses by the water’s edge. The road, the cliffs, the bracken– all dark and forbidding like a Nordic Noir. I hadn’t missed the coast while we were inland; I rarely do. Initially I was almost resistant to its beauty, until I realised that this coast was not pockmarked with hotels and cafés and beachside kiosks; it was pristine, wild, untameable.

Small single-family dwellings were spaced wide across the land; you could tell quickly if they were residential or holiday home, as the holiday homes had no tractors, no multitude of vehicles and looked generally prim and tidy. I dreamt of living in them all; I was particularly taken by a small white cottage on a hill. The road hugged the coast, sometimes meandering inland, other times crossing the fjord directly over a causeway. Once it departed up into the mountains, and we ascended up a steep, icy gravel track straight over a col. It was terrifying and thrillingly remote; if only we didn’t have the anxiety of the van’s propshaft rumble. We should’ve got it fixed in Búðardalur, but we chose to carry on. We’d made it into the Westfjords, but how would we make it out?

We rounded a corner into yet another fjord and pootled along its side by the water’s edge; the fjordsides were painted green and grey– whether the grasses reached their fingers up or the land slid down to meet them I couldn’t tell. The water surface was so still it created perfect reflections of the surrounding mountains, like a watercolour of brown and white; little floes of ice scudded across the surface like passing clouds, a perfect mirror of above.

After an eternity floating above the fjords we finally came to rest in the settlement of Flokalundur (even that term is too generous as I don’t believe anyone actually lived there). There was a fish farm, a 24 hour ‘shop’ selling fish and eggs and a monument dedicated to Flóki, the town’s Viking namesake and namer of Iceland (the old name Snowland apparently didn’t stick).

The next day we visited the very things that had drawn us here; hot springs. One carved into a black rockpool by the beach, the other a stone pool perched on the edge of the water, framed perfectly on either side by those iconic tiered mountains, golden grasses, black sands and glassy water. The rain clouds swirling around the mountaintops with the sun burning beneath them, periodically unleashing showers, was something quite dramatic. I’d never seen a scene so unmistakably Iceland.

There we met a lovely lady and fellow introvert, Edda, who’d moved to the Westfjords for their peace and wild beauty. Her little house with big glass windows looking out over the fjord gave me visions of what our future could look like one day when we eventually settled. Somewhere remote, but with a strong sense of community that lay far enough away for isolation, but close enough if you needed each other.

That afternoon we made the drive to Patreksfjörður in the hope of getting our van fixed. I elected to do the drive, to conquer my fear of icy roads.

I knew in my rational mind that it was just a short mountain pass with a little snow and ice at the top, but as soon as the tyres hit white my reaction was visceral. My fingers clenching the steering wheel, shallow breathing, tunnel vision. Reassuring myself it was okay over and over. At the top I had to stop, let Ben take the wheel.

He reassured me that it was in fact one of the worst roads he’d seen, with an icy camber and no barrier between the van and a sheer drop. But still I was disappointed in myself.

We managed to persuade a mechanic to open on a Saturday and fix our propshaft, which had very few miles left in it. Now at last we could drive easily without fear of it falling off and smashing the underside of our van. But with one problem fixed, another arises— as we headed back at dusk it transpired our headlights weren’t working, and we made our way back on sidelights. The joys of old, unreliable vehicles.

Despite the wonderful scenery and death-defying drives, I felt I hadn’t fully connected to the Westfjords yet. Thankfully they were about to change that for me, as that night they put on the most fantastic aurora display. A great green ripple of ethereal fire feeding across the sky from one side to the other, swirling in a spiral reflected above the fjord waters. I forgot my cold hands, my thin leggings, and just stood there squealing with delight and hugging Ben.

As the aurora rippled above us, as unreal as something dreamt, I understood why people choose to live out their whole lives in these empty folds of land. The Westfjords don’t offer comfort— they offer clarity. A stripping-back. A reminder of how small you are, and how vast you can feel at the same time.

Maybe that’s why I came here. Not just to see Iceland, but to see myself again— without all the noise.

If the northeast was a baptism of ice, then the Westfjords were a mirror. And for the first time on this trip, I recognised who I saw reflected back.

Thanks for wandering the far edges with me. If this story reached you in the right moment, or helped you feel a little braver in your own landscape, let me know— I always love hearing from you. Feel free to leave a comment or send me a message, I really do read every one. And if you’d like to help this story travel further, a like or a share goes a long way.

–Lucy 💙