In Canada, this would be an oil slick, caused by a passing freighter illegally flushing out its tanks at sea.
Not so nice!
But in Iceland, it’s more like an Earth slick.
It’s the confluence of a river that is taking an 1100-year-old farm away and the desire for a new road to prevent rural depopulation in Borgarfjördur Eystri.
The concept of “nature” is a balancing act here.
Arctic terns.
They dive at your hair and scream. The screaming comes first. They’re just not much ones for settling down on land.
Even if it’s the Njardvik beach and the Njardvik troll.
Up in the air it is!
It’s ironic. One can get so intent on looking up to avoid them, that, um …
… one is in danger of stepping on them. True to form for a crew that doesn’t like land too much…
… they’re not much in the way of nests. Not really.
Really not.
So be careful where you walk, and if the terns start diving?
Don’t be there.
The mountain bog around this stone was mined for peat in the cold centuries of Iceland, perhaps as late as the 1960s, but the stone was left. It was too big to build a fence from, too small to cut into a building block, and, besides, it wouldn’t burn in a fire.
Look how the arctic willow has clung to its warmth, though, building a rich ecosystem, even while the bog it might otherwise have rimmed is still nothing more than grass and a few flowers. The bog is now a thin layer of water mining the stone. Slowly, life will return from here.
The puffins at Rauðanes…
…are well-guarded. Note the troll, whose hair they live in, and his peek-a-boo stone seal.
Plus, a whole guard team on shore. Here’s one at work.
All this help allows puffins to build a pretty lovely set of penthouses in peace.
Just respect the management’s rules, that’s all, and yield at trail intersections!
Midsummer Night at Buðir, Looking Northwest to Snæfellsjökull
Whether you’re coming or going, it’s still the centre.
Man, the thought of having a wall of basalt and a cinder cone in my backyard, I tell you, nothing could be better.
.
If you don’t drive too quickly and get off Highway 1, you’ll find it. It’s a poor, poor farm, but, as Gunnar said, poverty is wealth, because everything the land gives comes straight from faith, as a gift, and gifts are not to be laughed away.
The Njardivk Road (No. 94), looking north from Geldingjafjall.
Look at the sun playing in the breakers at the river mouth in the distance!
First it appears in one farmer’s stable…
Skagafjörður
…, and then another’s.
It is great fun trying to outrun it.
A well deserved rest in the Vatnsdalshólar.
Lost the path to Arnarstapi? Or Hellnar?
Sometimes a thrush will lead you the right way. Well, actually, where a thrush leads you is always the right way, whether you are coming or going.
A Farm in Iceland 
