We had originally planned to only visit Vestmannaeyjar for an afternoon. But after our failed puffin hike, Peter graciously canceled our plans the next day to go back and attempt again to see some puffins (I had been talking about them for ages).
He called the ticketing office at the port that same morning and they confirmed they had room on the 1:15pm boat. So again, we headed out to the island.
This time, we bee-lined for the bike rental and got two mountain bikes for 3 hours. Again with the idea that everything is 20 minutes away, we assumed we could see puffins, stop by the local church, the folk museum, and the stave church well before hitting our time limit.
On the way to puffins, we took the coastal route that passed the golf coarse (said to be the most beautiful course in Europe) and a lot of dramatic seascapes.
The road was very hilly and I definitely struggled. With the same narrow lanes as the mainland, we wound up on a gravel path that was difficult to stay upright on. I walked my bike to the top.
The journey was longer, and certainly more difficult that we expected. All told, it probably took us over an hour to get to the puffins outlook (by bike, with a fair few downhill and flat segments–a far cry from the 20 minutes promised).
The puffin cabin was a cliff side hut with several sliding windows to look out of. There were a lot of puffins there (maybe 100-150 that we could see), but none were very close by.
The puffins nest in tiny hilly tufts of grass that grow along the cliffs, and there were constantly popping out of there little homes.
One puffin did come very close to the cabin 😍 and I got to see his silly face. Otherwise, they were shy and reclusive.
A smaller dirt path off the side of the puffin cabin lead to Storhofdi, the windiest point in Iceland. We circled round the tip of this point and back to our bikes. Aside from wind, there’s also a lot of sheep. Sheeps everywhere.
We dropped our bikes off back at the rental. The rental man was not there, nor were any other bikes, so we left them in the stand and I took a photo as proof in case we heard from them later.
The Stave church was a quick walk from the harbor. I found the hatch for the bell, and Peter rung it 🤭🤫. This was a quiet area with a few navel relics and a nice bit of history to interrupt all of our nature-and-landscape watching.
Of course, we went back again for pizza.
I would try every one of their pizzas if I could 😻
After the ferry ride home, we met up with a friend for dinner overlooking a different golf course. Of all things, their soup special of the day was pumpkin (a no-brainer).
I would love to sit here during a busy time to watch golfers tee off.
Love,
PD
making life an adventure 
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