Raudinupur Cape
Raudinupur Cape is a landscape in North Iceland, Iceland — about 586 km from Reykjavik and reached by a drive to the trailhead and a short walk in (footwear and weather check). Shoot it during the summer window, when light, road status, and crowd levels line up for photography, then use the GPS coordinates, parking notes, and nearby waypoints below to fold this stop into a longer photography route.
Overview
A cape in the northern part of Iceland north of Kópasker. Good for bird watching.
As a photography stop, Raudinupur Cape is a landscape in North Iceland, roughly 586 km from Reykjavik, reached by a drive to the trailhead and a short walk in (footwear and weather check). Plan the shoot during the summer window, when light, road status, and crowd levels line up for photography. The downloadable Landscape map pins exact GPS coordinates, parking, and nearby waypoints so you can fold it into a wider route instead of hunting for the pull-off on arrival.
Planning more than one stop? Open all 62 landscape viewpoints to put Raudinupur Cape on the same offline layer as everything nearby.
Notes on this location
Compiled from published sources rather than a visit. Sources are listed below.
A red cape standing 73 m out of the northwest end of Melrakkaslétta — an ice-age volcano coloured by red lapilli, with two sea stacks below it and the northernmost gannet colony in Iceland on the cliffs.
- The cape
- 73 m, at the northwest end of the Melrakkaslétta plain
- Why it is red
- An old volcano dating to the ice age; the colour comes from red lapilli
- The stacks
- Karlinn on the right and Sölvanöf on the left; Sölvanöf was joined to the mainland by a stone bridge until it collapsed in 1962
- The lighthouse
- Rauðanúpsviti, built 1958, with parts taken from an older light of 1929
- Birds
- Gannets — 272 pairs counted in 1999, the northernmost gannet colony in Iceland — with guillemot, fulmar and kittiwake
- The walk
- 30–45 minutes each way from the parking by Núpskatla farm, over very rocky shore
- Not in the source
- The cited page does not mention puffins here, despite the cape being widely listed as a puffin site
Red rock, two stacks and a gannet colony is an unusual combination — the colour does the work a grey cliff cannot, and gannets are large enough to photograph from the top where puffins would need a hide. Worth knowing that the source names no puffins: if they are the reason for the trip, confirm before committing seven hours of driving.
SourcesRauðinúpur cape and the two sea stacks — Guide to Iceland
Light & aurora at this spot
Calculated from this location’s coordinates (66.503, -16.542). Iceland stays on UTC year-round, so these are local times.
- Summer
- Midnight sun in June — the sun does not set, so golden light runs for hours either side of midnight.
- Winter
- December: only 2.4 h of daylight (11:48–14:14), but the sun never climbs above 0.2° — the entire day is golden hour. Sunrise bears SSE, sunset SSW.
- Aurora
- Aurora-grade darkness Sep–Mar, peaking at 13.1 h a night in December. Not possible Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug — the sky never gets dark enough.
Bar height is daylight hours. Months marked • have enough astronomical darkness for aurora; the rest do not.
Questions & answers
Raudinupur Cape is a landscape in North Iceland, Iceland, approximately 586 km from Reykjavik. Exact GPS coordinates are included in the downloadable Landscape map.
The recommended season for Raudinupur Cape is Summer. For light, plan around blue hour and the first hour after sunrise; Iceland's long shoulder-season twilight extends usable conditions on either side.
Drive/Hike access. Bring weather-appropriate footwear and check conditions before setting out. The downloadable GPS map puts the waypoint on your phone; your own app routes you to it from wherever you are.
Raudinupur Cape is best visited during Summer. Outside that window, expect limited access, weather closures, or significantly different photographic conditions.