Family Gathering at Steig in the South of Iceland

We left pretty late in the day, so we stopped in Selfoss (45 min drive) for dinner.

We stopped at a Thai place called Menam, which also offers more “traditional” food. Of course, the Thai food turned out to be a lot better than the other stuff, so now we know to avoid that.

The day began with us exiling the older kids from our room so that Emma could nap. Tablets are amazingly fantastic babysitters.

The view from the guesthouse. These buildings house sheep, machines, tools, a couple of rabbits, geese, hens, and a few humans.

The guesthouse. They have 16 very nice rooms.  We got the largest room, with four beds, a travel cot for Emma, and a huge bathroom.

Equipment.

Some sheep about to be herded (oh, how they can run!) with Pétursey mountain in the distance.

A handful of lambs were born while we were there. The ones on the outside of the fence were less than an hour old.

Back in the guesthouse, looking down the long central hallway.

Shortly after lunch, everybody else started arriving. (We were the only ones to arrive the night before.)  Here Finnur is with his parents and Emma.

The parking lot filling up with various family members. At this point, Finnur had hijacked my camera, and he took a gazillion photos. You can SEE THEM ALL HERE.

Everybody heading out to check out the farm, and then walking up a nearby hill. I stayed behind and napped with Emma. My heel wasn’t up to hiking anyway.

Þórarinn Víkingur and Bjarki.

Cute rabbits are cute.

Finnur flexing his art muscle.

Up, up, up the hill.

Happy group of people.

Checking out the mechanical shop.

Óli, the farmer at Steig.

Time to play games.

Anna playing with one of the many dogs present.

Thankfully, we remembered to bring our kid-carrying backpack, which proved to be very useful.

Playing in the rain.

Fun in the rain.

… and then there was no more rain!

Meanwhile, I checked out the farm, and walked a little ways up the hill with Emma. It was one of those “Life is good” moments. 🙂

We were told a couple of lambs had just been born, so we headed to the barn.

The two little newborns getting cleaned up by mom, while they were trying to find something to drink.

The farmer distributing hay.

Dinner being BBQed.

Ásrún, the lady of the house, preparing dinner.

Dinnertime!

After dinner, some of the kids went out to play some more. Here’s Bjarki with a toy Steinunn gave him before heading out.

After dinner, we played bingo! Our family won a bunch of things!

The main prize winner!

This photo is taken at 9 pm.

Steinunn and Finnur were the only representatives of their siblings.

There were a lot of people present! We took over the whole guesthouse for a night, and completely filled it.

The last official event of the day was a slide show of old pictures. One of the three brothers was a farmer at Steig, and both Finnur and his dad spent time there in their youth.

Old pictures are awesome!

Sunday was a gorgeous day, but we’d promised to leave by 11 am so that they could turn over the rooms for the next guests, so we couldn’t stay put for very long.

One of the local dogs.

The kids went to the barn to check up on the lambs that were born the day before, and some of them may have seen a lamb or two being born.

It’s absolutely amazing to see the tiny lambs get up and walk towards the milk within minutes of being born. How?!!??

Hey there sheep. We know you’re surrounded by hay, but would you like some hay?

I missed taking a photo of one family group, so I only have two group photos (there were three brothers).

Þórarinn (Finnur’s dad) and his step-brother, Guðni, along with family reps.

Time to say goodbye. A number of people decided to walk upon that mountain in the distance, but we weren’t feeling very mountain-y and instead opted to go look at lower-lying objects on our way back to the city.

Planning the journey back.

The kids enjoying the last of the animal playtime.

Our first destination was Vík in Mýrdal (Swamp Valley), a little further up the road. We needed gas!  Vík is the southernmost village in Iceland.

Gas being acquired.

Looking out to sea at the Reynisdrangar rock formations, which were our next destination.

Now on the other side of that mountain, looking at the same rock formations.

The island off in the distance is called Dyrhólaey, or Door-hill-island.

The waves pounding the shore were scary. Every now and then a tourist ventures too far and gets dragged out to their death.

Finnur photosphere-ing.  He moved a little further down the shore for another photosphere, see below!

Steinunn taking the boys to the fancy rocks and big cave.

Natural seating is awesome.

We’d left Emma sleeping in the car, and then sent Anna to check up on her. When Anna never returned, I went to fetch the girls. This is the view walking back to the car.

Where we were.  There were lots of warnings about the evil sea and nasty rock falling.

Having put Emma in her back pack, I headed back out to the beach…

… and met everyone heading back!

We were told to ‘peek around the corner’ so we did, and found this really cool cave.  Photos don’t do it justice.

Fancy rocks make fancy caves.

The girls.

Having had our fill of fancy rocks and scary waves, we drove back towards Reykjavík, but stopped by the ever popular Seljalandsfoss waterfall.

It was a gorgeous day, but there was a chilly wind in the air, and we knew the waterfall would spray us, so we packed on the clothing.

You can walk behind the waterfall. The road is a little scary in places, and not the easiest to traverse. But it’s totally worth it!

The sun shining down through the water.

Happy people. Emma was pretty pissed when we left the waterfall though, she really enjoyed it.

A hop and a skip away, we stopped at Hvolsvöllur for a late lunch at Eldstó. The kids enjoyed seeing a film on how pottery that is sold in the restaurant was made, and the food was good too!