Day 39-exploring Hvalfjörður

   February 12-The Winter Lights Festival concluded on Sunday, so we took advantage of it

one last time by visiting the zoo, which was free.  As far as I know,
this is the only zoo in Iceland, and it is more of a petting zoo by American standards.  That seemed to fit the bill, though, because everyone had a great time there.  In keeping with common practice, all of the farm animals, except horses and chickens, were housed inside.  Meanwhile, the native wild animals, including some seals, an arctic fox, and a reindeer,

were all kept outside.  Actually reindeer are not native; the wild herds in the eastern part of Iceland are descendants of animals introduced to Iceland in 1770.  The only live international displays of the zoo were some African clawed frogs, a milk snake from the North America, and some Australian bearded dragon lizards.  The zoo is part of a large complex of facilities, including a botanical garden, a swimming pool, soccer fields and an amusement park, so I think we will be back when the weather is better.

These stone structures are the ruins of sheep sorting pens.
In the fall, shepherds round up their mixed flocks of sheep
and bring them down to these pens from the highlands.
 They then sort them by owner. Sorting pens made from
 stacked stone or metal panels are still used today.

   We ate a late dinner at Ning's, an Icelandic chain of Vietnamese
restaurants.  Surprisingly, oriental restaurants are actually pretty common in Iceland and are
supposed to be pretty good.  In any event, we enjoyed the food at Ning's.  For our return trip to Bifröst, we decided to drive around Hvalfjörður (whale fjord), rather than through the tunnel under its mouth.  It turns out that the fjord's name is fitting, because whales used to be found within it.  A whaling station was also located in the fjord.  Whalers would harpoon a whale at sea and then butcher it at the station, which was relatively protected from the choppy waves of the open ocean.  The drive around the fjord added about 45 minutes to our trip, but the views were spectacular, even if we didn't see any whales.  We will definitely be back for some hiking when the weather is nicer.