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Gardar
is the southernmost farm of Iceland.
West of it is the abandoned farm Hellur, where there are several
manmade caves carved into the soft hyaloclastites.
One of them is called Badstofuhellir.
The Rev. Jon Steingrimsson, later called “The Fire Priest”,
occupied it. He spent his
first winter as a reverend for the county in this cave and probably
studied German there as well.
Reynir
was the first farm to be built in this area by the first settler.
It was a parsonage for a long time and the church at Hofdabrekka
was its annex. The Reynir
and Solheimar parishes merged and called The Myrdalur Parish, which is
now called The Vik Parish. In
1929 it was decided to build a church in Vik and in 1932 the parsonage
was moved there officially. The
present church at Reynir stands away from the original locations of the
churches. Some fishing
outfits were operated from Reynishofn in the past.
The cultural community centre Eyrarland is situated at Reynir
A
short distance south of Gardar, at the southwestern foot of the Reynir
Mountain, are caves, some of which depict beautiful columnar basalt
patterns. The pinnacles
Reynisdrangar (66m), according to a legend, were left standing there after two night-trolls tried to pull a
three masted vessel past the headland, but were petrified by
the first rays of sunshine on that fateful day. A man called Eldeyjar-Hjalti, was the first to climb the
highest pinnacle.
Mt.
Reynir (340m) is a hyaloclastite mountain with some basaltic layers and
steep screes. Rockslides
are frequent, and the traces of the most recent ones are obvious on the
eastern side. On its top
are ruins of a loran station, which was operated there for a while.
The Allied forces built a road, probably the steepest one in this
country, to its top during the Second World War. |