Robert's Travels

We awoke to weather that was overcast and slightly wet, however the wind was quite a bit less intense than it had been yesterday. We were originally scheduled to go kayaking in a glacial lake near the Vatnajökull national park at 9 AM, however we had received notice from the tour company the night before that the kayaking tour had to be cancelled due to high winds. This last-minute cancellation freed up our morning, and we took advantage of this free time to sleep in a bit. Once everyone was awake we made a quick breakfast of scrambled eggs, packed up the car and continued on our way.

Shortly after leaving Höfn the ring road began to climb and started following the side of the mountain (with the ocean being to the right of the car). This was the first time that the road had really changed in elevation, and it was cool to get a bit of height and see the ocean from a higher vantage point. We stopped at a viewing area and captured a few photos of the ocean, then continued on. As the drive continued we saw a number of waterfalls coming down the side of the mountain and running towards the ocean. It was hard to decide if they are really waterfalls, or if they were just rivers going down particularly steep mountain faces, but either way they were quite beautiful. We had seen many of these over the past few days, however this part of the island seemed to have a higher concentration of them. It could have been that the rain over the past few days had caused the rivers to grow and be easier to see from the road, or it could have just been a geographic difference. Either way, they were quite beautiful.

The road ended up taking us to Djúpivogur, a small fishing village. The rain was coming down lightly as we wandered around by the docks, however the rain started to pick up so we ducked into the Við Voginn restaurant and had muffins and some coffee while we waited out the rain. After the rain calmed down we continued exploring the town, and visited a rock museum, where a town local has assembled a garden containing stones he has collected from across the island. It was really a neat thing to see.

After visiting the rock museum we departed Djúpivogur and continued driving along the ring road. After a bit of driving we came across Sveinsstekksfoss. This waterfall was visible from the ring road, and had a short, gravel-covered access road that led to a small parking lot. The rain had picked up again so we didn’t walk too far from the car, but we were able to see the tail end of the waterfall. The heavy rains over the last few days had swelled the river, and the water was flowing very quickly. It was a good opportunity to stretch the legs and capture some photos of a less recognized piece of the Icelandic countryside.

We left Sveinsstekksfoss and continued on, until we were stopped by a herd of sheep on the road. This was the moment Susan had been waiting for, and she was quick to get out of the car and take a few photos. We were only delayed for several minutes while the farmers herded the sheep off of the road and into a pasture.

Once we were able to pass we continued driving to Breiðdalsvík. This was another small fishing town in the eastern part of Iceland. The general store is kind of the site to see in the town, however once we’d stopped in there was not much else to see. We had lunch at the Hotel Bláfell, where I had a sheep soup. After lunch we gassed up the car and continued along.

Our drive took us away from the coast and into the heart of the island. We went through a few tunnels, including one tunnel that was an impressive 6 km long. It didn’t take much more than 90 minutes of driving before we arrived in Egilsstaðir, the location of the AirBnB we were going to be staying at. We checked in, unpacked our things, then quickly got back into the car. It was about 4:30 PM by this point, however the clouds had cleared and the sun had come out, and we wanted to make the most of it.

We drove the 30 minutes to the base of the Hengifoss waterfall, and began a late afternoon hike. This waterfall was about 2.5 km away from the parking lot, and the majority of that was uphill. We gained quite a bit of elevation, as Hengifoss is the third highest waterfall in Iceland. Halfway along the hike we encountered Litlanesfoss, which has the same basalt columns that we saw in Svartifoss. The last 500m or so of the hike took us along a glacial riverbed, which was fertile ground for some impressive panoramas. The hike back to the car went quite a bit faster, which gave us time to take some neat photos of the sun as it set across the valley. We drove back into Egilsstaðir and got a load of laundry going. We all had a bunch of clothes that hadn’t truly dried from the soaking they had received yesterday, so it was nice to wash them and run them through a proper dry cycle.

Once we had started our laundry we went out for dinner. We decided to dine at the Guesthouse Egilsstaðir, where we had a very nice meal. I had a very delicious beef tenderloin and beef cheek dish, with a potato cake side. It felt nice to have a good meal after enjoying a beautiful hike. We didn’t rush through dinner, we just enjoyed our surroundings.

After we got back to the AirBnB, Kate and I decided to go outside and see if we could see the northern lights. This was the first night we had where the clouds didn’t completely cover the sky, so we figured that there was a decent chance we could see them. Kate had brought her tripod and she was also excited to try some night photography. We went outside around 10:00 PM, and spent the first 45 minutes taking photos of the stars because we couldn’t see the Aurora Borealis. The big dipper was quite visible, and it was also possible to see the milky way. There was a faint bar in the sky we thought might be the aurora, however it wasn’t bright enough to tell. At just about 10:45 PM, the faint bar we had previously thought might the be aurora brightened up considerably and started ‘dancing’. It was really exciting to see - we were seeing the northern lights in Iceland! We messaged to the rest of the group to come quickly, and they did. Kate got a number of cool photos of the northern lights, including some with us in them! All in all it was a very satisfying way to end a very satisfying day.