Let me give you a bit of insight into why we were so keen to find the puffins and why they played a big part in us wanting to come to Iceland in the first place. It goes beyond 'ohh puffins, they're sooooo cute aren't they!".
They're clumsy and awkward, they're a bit strange, they mate with the same partner for life, they exhibit no aggression between each other and return to the same burrow each year. All traits that we like to think embody us and our relationship and are what endeared them to us so much to begin with.
The morning started at the beautiful Seljalandsfoss. A waterfall where you can walk on a path behind it to feel the intensity with which it comes down. A nice start and a good view to enjoy your morning coffee with.
After that it was time to board the car ferry to the Westman Islands, to Heimaey in particular. "Brain Fart Brim", as Nicola so kindly referred to me, managed to get our car on and off the ferry without an issue (much to Nix's surprise) and we headed straight to the tourist information where the lady there circled four rather ambiguous spots on a map where we should be able to find puffins. At no point did she add that there's no guarantee or that you'd have to be lucky to see them.
Before we began our puffin search, the island's other main attraction is the volcano that destroyed multiple houses and lives just over 40 years ago which you're now able to climb to the top of. It's huge and intimidating and from the top provides an interesting perspective of what it destroyed (and created) in its path.
This section of land didn't exist before it erupted.
And here you can see a couple of the buildings that got in its way.
Yes, once upon a time there was a house under there.
After that sobering introduction to the island, it was puffin time. The cliffs were going to be crawling with them.
The first circle on the map was one where the lady at the tourist office had said "do you mind climbing a bit?". We said sure, we'll be fine, given that we now considered ourselves to be accomplished trekkers after Norway (link).
But the nine or ten wet ladders that presented us and the warning sign advising that you climb the cliff at your own risk were enough of a deterrent. And just around the corner she'd marked two more spots on the map where we'd be able to see them. Not worth the risk we agreed.
We pulled up at the next circle and started up a set up steps that had been worn into the hills from years and years of people doing the same thing as us. Fifteen minutes later, of walking vertically up the hill on all fours, we made it up the hill to the ridge of the cliff and proceeded along it with trepidation. Every now and again I would climb over a couple a rocks to peek over the edge but nothing. Not a puffin in sight.
Nix later admitted to me that she'd hardly ever been as scared as when she had to descend the cliff knowing how hard it was to just get up the thing. One wrong step really did spell trouble.
We walked the length of the ridge but still nothing. Forlornly, we struggled back down and headed over to the other circle on the map that was close by. Still nothing and not even a cliff or a patch of land that looked like it could house a puffin.
That little red dot is Morrison. And the faint line going up to the left was what we had to climb.
At this point in time we were thinking that this was as close as we were going to get to the elusive little buggers.
There was one circle left on that map and it was right out on the southern point of the island.
Now might be a good time to point out that since the day that we'd picked up our camper van we had not seen the sun and it had rained for large parts of every day. It was only at our last stop at that cliff had the rain finally cleared up. Up until that point the weather had been horrendous.
The lady at tourist info had said that down the southern end of the island was a walking track and a "house" that you could watch the puffins from. We drove slowly up the road unable to spot anything that looked like the house but down in a field saw a couple of yellow markers that marked the walking path.
It was closing in on 7pm by time we got out of the car and at the very least we'd found somewhere to park for the night.
We hopped over a fence and connected with the walking path. Five hundred metres down the track and still nothing but as we rounded the bend, just 10 metres in front of us, a puffin looked our way and flew back out to the ocean.
We'd found a group of their burrows and sat for about half an hour as we watched what we suspected to be thousands of them socialising out on the ocean together after they'd been out feeding for the day. A couple more flew close to the cliffs but not close enough for a photo or a really good look. What we began to notice was that a lot of them were flying around to the right of the cliffs, so we set off in that direction, passing a few cliff side sheep on our way. At this point all of the clouds had disappeared but it was still fairly windy.
We kept walking but didn't come across any burrows and both began to wonder if that was it. Not that we felt hard done by, you just always want more.
Given we'd skipped lunch we began to head back to the car for dinner and decided that we might come back out after it.
But then the wind died off and this happened.
To the unsuspecting eye that doesn't look like much but to the trained eye it's a cliff side filled with these.
Puffin burrows.
And, we'd finally found that bloody "house".
For the next three hours we had the shelter to ourselves and witnessed what is the most beautiful and amazing thing that I've ever seen.
First of all we were excited to see two of them appear from out of their burrows.
Then we were excited to see one nose dive into its burrow.
And then from there things got out of control. They began coming in from sea by the hundreds and soon the cliff was just a mass of puffins stumbling around trying to find their homes and reconnecting with their mate before squeezing into their burrow for the night.
By the end of the few hours a very exhausted (sometimes emotional) us let them be for the night and wandered back to the car feeling the kind of connection between two people that you only feel when you get married or have kids together.
But right then Iceland stood up and said, 'that's not all that I'm capable of'.
These two looked back at us begging to be photographed.
A lamb hopped up on its mum and gave another bullsh*t moment.
And two other lambs came tearing across the paddock comically after their mum gave the call that it was milk time, initially trying to suckle onto another unsuspecting sheep.
And then the sun's remaining few rays shone down near the beach and guided us to this little spot for the night.
That night we cheers'd (with Icelandic moss schnapps) to all of that effort, to any other time that the weather wasn't how we would've liked it to be and to what we now remember as Puffin Mountain.
I'm not a religious man, nor do I really accept the concepts of luck or karma but something looked down on us that day and we couldn't be more grateful.
Click here for day 8.
