Gerduberg Cliffs, Iceland

I’m not going to lie, I’m mentally fatigued from driving all day, the car needs gas and I’m hoping this sketchy dirt road doesn’t take us to the center of the earth. Don’t get me wrong, it’s beautiful, but my eyes can only stare into uninhabitable landscape for so long before they need to lock onto something. Squinting, trying to bring a distant ridge into focus. Is that the basalt columns? and when my inner voice confirms it with there it is, a sense of relief floods through me and awestruck wonder lights up the rest of the gang.

To stand beside the enormous stacks is about a ten minute walk from the car. The terrain transitions from dirt to lumpy bumpy grass, through a boulder-strewn area, then a field of rock-fall and finally the steep pitch to the foot of the pillars, Mary and Monique lead the way followed closely by Tracy while I bring up the rear. I carefully pick my way over the uneven ground, pausing to take photos. Just at the incline Mary decides she is going to take a seat on one of the large rocks and will be up shortly. We should “Go on up.”

Tracy and Monique are already posing with the 14-meter-high hexagon columns. I stand below them snapping keepsake pictures for them, then swivel around to take one of Mary who is happily sitting on her perch. I put the cap back on my camera and head up to the stand beside columns myself.

I can see the wheels turning in Tracy’s mind as her eyes draw a line from where we are to the top of the stacks. There is a faint eroded path proving people do go up there. She says, “Think I can do it.” She swings around one of the boulders and makes her way over. I look up and judge the effort and risk involved then speak up. “I’m not going up there, you are on your own.” Monique slides a look down the hill towards Mary, neither of them are even entertaining the idea of going up to the top. Within a minute of moving up the path Tracy reconsiders and says, “Um maybe not.”

When everyone has a selfie against the cliff wall, we make our way down to the foundation of a building. Our self-drive tour print-off says it is a historic site but gives no other details. We spend a few minutes walking around it, paying homage to a long ago settler’s home. After a few photos we head back to the car.

A couple of kilometers down the dirt road is a church but there is a chain across the driveway with a private property sign. I do a three point turn and head out back on the main road. Our forty-minute stop here finalized an amazing day that started with Reykjavik #2, onto Akranesviti Lighthouse, Iceland, Hraunfossar & Barnafoss Waterfalls, Deildartunguhver Geothermal Area, Iceland and Fossatun and here.

Monique puts Kast Guesthouse into Google Maps and we turn right, heading west on highway 54. It is another 50 km before we are home sweet home – for tonight, anyway. Please join me again as we eat drink and are merry under the northern lights of Iceland. Happy travels from Maritime Mac

No commission, gifts or discounts were received for writing this. It is my own story for you to enjoy.

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