The cache is placed near one of few catholic churches in Iceland, the beautiful and innovative St Jósefskirkja, or St Josephschurch. The building is quite lovely and it's not often you see a recent, big, yellow building in Iceland.
The hill to the right of the church is a great viewpoint over Hafnarfjordur. There used to be a farm here, Jófríðarstaðir, but it used to be called Ófriðarstaðir, or Battleplace. It was mentioned in documents in 1595, as a land belonging to the king of Denmark, who also ruled Iceland at the time. The Danes owned Iceland for 600 years. It was called Ófriðarstaðir most probably after a battle between Hansa merchants and english merchants over commercial rights for the Hafnarfjörður area. It was in 1921 that the catholic church in Iceland bought the land and in 1993 they opened the church and made the church holy. There have been attemps from the town to build in this lovely area but they have been stopped in the past and hopefully the land will remain as it is.
Hafnarfjörður, officially Hafnarfjarðarkaupstaður is a port town and municipality in Iceland, located about 10 km (6 mi) south of Reykjavík. The municipality consists of two non-contiguous areas in the Capital Region, on the southwest coast of the country. At about 30,000 inhabitants, Hafnarfjörður is the third-most populous city in Iceland after Reykjavík and Kópavogur. It has established local industry and a variety of urban activities, with annual festival events.
The town is the site of an annual Viking festival, where Viking culture enthusiasts from around the world display reconstructions of Viking garb, handicraft, sword-fighting and longbow shooting. It takes place in June each summer.
Hafnarfjörður takes its name (meaning harbour fjord) from the area's natural harbour. The town is built on top of Holocene lava fields erupted from the nearby Krýsuvík volcanic system, including the 8000-year-old Búrfellshraun and the much younger 2000-year-old Óbrinnishólabruni. There have been no new lava flows on the site since before the Settlement of Iceland, but the Krýsuvík system is still an active volcano, last erupting in 2021 at Fagradalsfjall further to the southwest.
Hafnarfjörður is first named in the medieval Landnámabók, and the earliest reports of voyages to Hafnarfjörður date from the end of the 14th century. Englishmen began trading in Hafnarfjörður in the 15th century, but German merchants followed in their wake and eventually drove the English out. In German documents, Hafnarfjörður was mentioned for the first time in 1391, and in another German document dating from 1486 the place was described as a trading place of merchants from Hamburg for the first time.[2]
The town of Hafnarfjörður became an official member of the Hanseatic League. The first Lutheran church in Iceland was raised at Háigrandi opposite Óseyri, just outside the small boat harbour in 1533. After that, the Hanseatic traders prevailed in town until 1602, based at Hvaleyri. At this point, the Danish monarchy established a Danish trade monopoly in Iceland which lasted until late in the 18th century. During this period, Hafnarfjörður was the nation's busiest trade centre.
The Coot, Iceland's first trawler, operated from Hafnarfjörður between 1905 and 1908. Its boiler stands by the roundabout on the junction of Reykjavíkurvegur, Strandgata and Vesturgata. There is another cache located there :)