Western Iceland

Our last two days in Iceland were spent exploring the Trollaskagi (Troll) Peninsula and some of Western Iceland. After leaving Akureyri, we headed north to Siglufjordur to check out the Herring Era Museum. Once you buy a ticket, you have access to the three different buildings that make up the museum. The first building The first building is the old salting station from a Norwegian herring station. The bottom floor is full of information about the start of foreigners going to Iceland to fish for herring in the early 1900s to the rise of Iceland joining in on the herring cash flow to the ultimate demise of the entire industry due to overfishing. The second story of this building shows the sleeping quarters of some of the workers. When they were restoring the house, they found all kinds of items left behind, from shoes to clothing, magazines, and kitchenware. These items were used to create the displays. There wasn't much room in the sleeping quarters. There were usually 6 to 8 bunks per room with a small storage area where the herring clothing was kept. 

The second building explains how the herring was transformed into meal and oil. It is full of huge machinery. All the heavy machinery found in the exhibition was gathered from old, abandoned herring factories around the country. 

The last building is called The Boathouse. It is a new building that we guessed was built around a large herring boat that is inside. There are a couple of other boats inside the building to give you a feel for what people use to use to go out and catch the herring. 

From Siglufjordur, we headed to Hofsos with the intention of going to their hot pool/ swimming spot. It sits right at the edge of a cliff and overlooks the ocean. It is absolutely magnificent! 

Our last full day in Iceland was spent on a five hour drive to Stykkisholmur. When reading about it, I expected it to be fairly large with a lot of different things to do. Unfortunately, this wasn't really the case and it didn't take us long to hit all the main attractions in the town. We hit up Sugandisey, a basalt island with a tiny lighthouse. There is a walkway that leads you across the harbor to the island. There's a short walking trail that leads around the island and up to the lighthouse. Like I said, it was a tiny lighthouse. I honestly don't think it was much taller than 10ft. After visiting the island and lighthouse, we moseyed around the town for a bit before heading back to our guesthouse to write our postcards. 







Our last day was spent on a wild goose chase looking for any type of artwork that we actually liked and getting to the airport. One of our attempts to find a gallery lead us down some very off the beaten roads to a beautiful little bridge. We gave up any attempt at finding the art gallery, but got a beautiful shot of the bridge on our way back to the main road. 

Akureryi

Our final stop in Myvatn was on our way out of town. We stopped at Skutustadgigar, a field filled with pseudocraters. Again, the picture in my mind of what these should look like did not match up with what reality held in store for us. I imagined a barren landscape similar to what we had seen at the sulpher smelling mudpots from the day before with small craters like what you would see on the moon. Instead, these pseudocraters were more like small grassy hills with sheep grazing all around. It is believed that the craters were formed when lava flowed into Lake Myvatn and caused gas explosions. Just like at Dimmuborgir, there are some easy walking trails around the pseudocraters. Some also had stairs leading to the top of them so that you could look down into them. It was a bit underwhelming as a whole just because I was expecting something so foreign looking and what we got ended up looking like grassy hills.

Our next stop was at Godafoss or waterfall of the gods. Its name comes from ancient times. In the year 1000 Iceland was ready for a civil war because the country was divided between practicing Christianity and worshiping pagan gods. The law speaker pondered over the matter for a day and night and decided that the country should adopt Christianity but that pagans should be allowed to practice privately. In making this decree, he helped Iceland avoid civil war. It is said that the law speaker came to Godafoss and threw his statues of pagan gods over the waterfall once Christianity was formally accepted in Iceland. This is why Godafoss has the name waterfall of the gods.

Behind Godafoss, down a gravel road that turns into a 4x4 road at the very end, lies another waterfall called Aldeyarfoss. We checked with some locals at the gas station that the road was okay for our little Hyundai I10 before making the journey out there. We got within 2km of the waterfall before coming on signs that said the rest of the journey was not suitable for anything other than a 4x4. So Scott and I got out and walked up the road to the falls. It was definitely worth the hike through the windswept fields up to the waterfall. The rock surrounding the falls was made up of black basalt columns. They are unique landforms that are amazing to look at. Because it is so far off the main drag and down an unpaved road, there are not many other tourists that make it out to Aldeyarfoss. This made it even more special because there were no tour busses back there with us.

From here, we journeyed on to our stopping point for the evening,

Akureryi (A-ku-rare-i). Our Air BnB host was awesome and gave us some great tips for what to see and some hidden gems around the area that not many people other than locals know about. Scott and I wandered around the ‘city’ center before heading up to the botanical gardens. They aren’t his favorite thing, but he tolerates them because he knows that I enjoy looking at all the different plants and flowers. We did learn that it is illegal to grow opium poppies in Iceland.

For dinner we went to a restaurant that was recommended by both our host and the guidebook. The only things I liked about it was the view of the harbor and the water. We ordered a traditional Icelandic 4 course meal just to try it. When listening to our waiter describe the courses, I thought all but one would sound like something I would like. We started with beef tar tar (which I knew I wouldn’t like) but was game to try. I couldn’t stomach much of mine before we moved onto our next course of smoked Arctic charr. I was looking forward to trying this because so far, I’ve really enjoyed all the different ways I had had Arctic charr. What I didn’t realize was that it was cold smoked. Scott started laughing at me when I was outraged that they had brought us more tar tar. He then informed me that on every other menu it was advertised as cold smoked. I was most definitely not impressed with this cold smoking method. Our main course was lamb with Icelandic potatoes. The lamb had really good flavor but also grossed me out because it was very rare. For dessert, we had a thin pancake with skyr and berries. This was by far the best course but still not as good as some of the other desserts we have had in our time here. This meal made me miss our other bad meal at Gerdi Guesthouse. There, at least my food was fully cooked! LOL

The view heading back into Akureryi.  

After our unsatisfying dinner, Scott and I headed for a small village that our host had told us about. There is an old herring plant located here with a small hot tub right at the edge of the ocean that is free. Upon getting there, we discovered that it was indeed a small hot tub with four people already using it. We walked around the outside of the herring plant in hopes that they were almost finished and we could use it but didn’t have any luck with that. Rather than trying to sit on their laps when we squeezed in there, we headed back to Akureryi to Iceland’s best ice cream shop, Brynjuis. It’s clearly very popular as the line was out the door. We waited and got some delicious ice cream. I ordered a twister, which is comparable to a blizzard. They put the ice cream and toppings into a small plastic pitcher before blending it together and scooping it into your awaiting cup. As they were putting in the ice cream, my eyes got bigger and bigger and bigger at the amount they kept adding. It looked like I was getting an extra large twister rather than a small. Scott went basic and got a dark chocolate dipped chocolate cone. He happily finished off the rest of my twister. In the end, we did end up with some pretty good dessert that day!

Myvatn

It has been a busy couple of days. Tuesday morning, we left Eastern Fjords for Myvatn (Me- vat) in the North. This quickly turned into an action packed day as Myvatn is located in the Krafla Volcano region and there is a lot to see and do. This area has huge differences in the landscape when comparing it to the rest of the country. There are huge lava fields with nothing but ash, sand, rock, and boulders. In between the lava fields are sometimes fields of grass with sheep grazing.

Selfoss

Our first stop along the way to Myvatn was at a waterfall called Dettifoss. It was a beautiful, strange thing to see as it literally sits in the middle of a lava field wasteland. The wind picks up the fine particles of ash, sand, and dirt and blows them all around you as you walk the 1km out to the platform to view the falls. Dettifoss is huge and the sound it makes is astounding. Because it travels through the lava field, it is the dirtiest looking waterfall we’ve seen since arriving in Iceland. Just a short of a kilometer from Detifoss is a smaller, but still amazing, waterfall called Selfoss. We didn’t walk all the way to this one because we knew we had a lot on our plate that we wanted to accomplish on our way too and while in Myvatn. So, we got to a spot where we could snap some cool photos and then headed back to the car park.

Steam vent with sulfur water.

Rocky steam vent

As we continued on our way to Myvatn, we had to do a quick U-turn because out of nowhere came Hverir. We definitely smelt it at the same time that we saw it. Hverir is an open area and part of a mountainside that is filled with steaming vents that release a sulpheric smell and create areas of mudpots around them. The areas that are unsafe to walk on have been roped off and there are signs everywhere saying to stay on the path. However, I saw someone dumb enough to ignore all of these warning signs. I saw him look around to see who was watching and then hop the low-lying rope barrier. He didn’t make it long inside the mudpot before getting out of there. They’re called mudpots because the steam coming out is hot enough to melt the soil around the vent. So, this man sunk down to his ankles but luckily didn’t get hurt. After wandering around this foreign landscape for a bit and taking all the sulfuric smell one person can handle in a short time, we back tracked just a bit and headed up for the lookout on to Krafla Geothermal Power Station.

We didn’t do too much here. Primarily, we went up to the lookout platform overlooking the mountainside where the station has been set up. Krafla is technically just the name of the mountain, but the surrounding area and power plant have also been lumped in with this name. Krafla has various fissures that have opened up a couple of different times throughout history. This is what created the lava fields surrounding Krafla and Myvatn. The last time the fissures opened up, it spit magma out on and off for nine years from 1975-1984. It was also during this time that they started construction on the Krafla Geothermal Power Station. They were both braver and crazier than what I would have been!

We passed one more point of interest as we headed into the Myvatn area but didn’t stop at this one. It was just a beautiful, toxic pond along the roadside. The pond is leftover from some type of processing plant that someone tried to set up there. In the past, farmers tried to grow potatoes in that area, but they came out of the ground already boiled. They also drilled holes to see if there could be a power plant built on the site. One of the holes emits steam that is 200 degrees Celsius despite being 2300m deep. I think people have realized that this particular mountainside is not one that can be messed with!

The huge fissure above Grjotagja.

After a busy morning, we finally arrived in the hub town of Reykjalid and inquired about a hike we were interested in at the visitor’s center. After getting where the trailhead was located and refilling our water bottles, we headed out. Our original intent was to go about 8km one way and hit up 3 different sights along the way. After the first 2km along a strange path through a dwarf birch like ‘forest’ with huge fissures in the ground and then walking through a lava field, we arrived at Grjotagja. This is a cave filled with 45 degree Celsius water. Because it’s on private land, you cannot bathe here but you can go down into it and take a look around. The water is stunningly clear, and you can feel the heat from the water as soon as you get down into the cave. There is a huge fissure running over the top of the cave. Myvatn is also located on the North Atlantic ridge. In some ways the terrain reminds me of that at Thingvellir National Park.

Hverfjall from a distance.

At this point, the trail was not very clearly marked, and we headed in the wrong direction before getting stopped by a fence. We were very confused because we could see the next spot where we wanted to go but couldn’t figure out how we were supposed to get there without the trailhead. Over some peanut m&ms we contemplated what to do and decided to head back to Grjotagja. Scott ended up finding the trailhead and so we continued on our way walking through lava fields to Hverfjall. This is a huge tephra crater that completely dominates the landscape. There’s a path that seems to go straight up the side of it. The signboard at the bottom said there was a path around the very top of it that you could walk around. There’s also a second trail that leads to the bottom and heads in the direction of the third spot that we wanted to visit.

We decided to skip hiking all the way to the third spot because it was still 4km away, and we were getting hungry. We did hike to the top with the intention of possibly walking the trail at the top. So, we made the climb straight up to the top. Even though the wind had been blowing us around all day, it was nothing in comparison to what we got at the top of the crater. It was literally pushing me around and totally freaked me out. We snapped a couple of photos and turned right around and headed back down. It was interesting to see, but I’m not sure I would go up to the top again.

Dimmuborgir lava steam vent.

We did make it to our last destination of the day, Dimmuborgir, after a delicious dinner. Dimmuborgir is a super cool area. They believe it was created when lava flowed into a lake or marshland. The water started to boil causing steam jets to rise up through the lava. As the steam cooled the lava, it created the pillars. They also believe the pillars are hollow. After reading this description in the guidebook, I imagined skinny pillars, but most of the pillars are huge! We wandered around some of the trails wandering around and sometimes into the pillars. This was by far one of my favorite spots of the day.

Southeast & Eastern Iceland

I am currently typing this post as we drive to the Myvatn region in Northern Iceland. Our past two days have been spent lazily exploring the Southeast and Eastern regions of Iceland. We didn’t do very much driving on Sunday while exploring the Southeast. We stayed in the big town of Hofn (pronounced Hup). I’m just kidding, it was a tiny village but did seem huge after driving through literally nothing while on the road going around Vatnajokull National Park.

The Viking Film Village at the Viking Cafe

Hofn is a harbor town and offers a collection of restaurants, a grocery store, and guesthouses intermingled with local homes. It is a charming place with quite possibly the best restaurant in Iceland located here. While we were visiting Hofn, we did make the short jaunt out to Viking Cafe. The guidebook painted it as an interesting place with black sand beaches, mountains, hiking trails, and a movie set. For me, it turned out to be rather disappointing. From a distance, the movie set was rather cool with the mountains as a backdrop, but upon closer inspection, it was clear that they had finished filming everything and nothing was being done to the upkeep of it. Things were already starting to fall apart and a lot of the buildings contained discarded items. After exploring the film set, we did drive down the parking area by the cliffs/ beach. We wandered for a bit and took photos of the lighthouse and an old NATO communication defense system. We decided against the walk along the black sand beaches because of the wind. It is vicious and cuts through absolutely everything you are wearing.

The mountains and black sand beach around the Viking Cafe

For dinner and quite possibly one of the best meals either of us has ever had, we headed Parkhaus, located right on the harbor. Hofn is famous for it’s langoustine (Icelandic lobster). For a cool $70 a plate, most of the restaurants in Hofn serve it up in a variety of ways. However, at Parkhaus, Scott and I opted for the catch of the day. It turned out to be a wonderful choice and was by far the highlight of my day!

Looking down at Seydisfjordur. 

Yesterday, we drove through most of Eastern Iceland. This makes the area around Southern Iceland & Vatnajokull look like a sprawling metropolis. There are mountains, fjords, valleys, and very few people or villages. The Eastern coast is made up of a series of fjords. The ring road, Route 1, goes around the very Southern most fjord before cutting to the interior. We discovered that not the entire national highway is paved. We both had to chuckle at this. We wound our way through the mountains and had stunning views of waterfalls, mountain peaks, rivers, and valleys.

Avalanche Monument 

We made our way into Seydisfjordur. We went off the ring road here and the majority of it was unpaved as we made our way up and back down the mountain. The views down into the town from the top of the mountain were stunning. There was a big river with plenty of waterfall drops through it running right next to the road. The surrounding mountains had dozens of waterfalls as well. Seydisfjordur is advertised as having lots of artists with shops. Both Scott and I were excited at the prospect of finding some amazing paintings. However, what we found left us disappointed.

Scott's second NatGeo photograph of puffins.

After wandering around the town for a bit, we hit the road again, heading for our final destination of the day, Borgarfjordur Eystri. This was a tiny, tiny place with just a couple of guesthouses and restaurants. We came here because they have a big cliff that puffin’s nest in. The puffins burrow into the cliff to make their nests. There are other birds that nest on the cliff  (we think they were fulmers) that wait for the puffins to come back with food and try to steal it from them. The puffins that have caught fish fly straight for their nests and try not to get chased by these other birds. There is a really nice viewing platform where you can get up close to the puffins. They’re cute little birds and it’s hilarious to watch them take off and land as they’re not the most coordinated of birds. We spent a fair bit of time up on the cliff watching them and taking a ton of photos.

We’ve realized that in order to live in Eastern Iceland you would have to be a very self-sufficient individual especially if you lived there before modern roads and vehicles. We are assuming that in winter all the towns on the fjords become very isolated. It’s a beautiful area, but would be harsh t

Black Sand Beaches and Glaciers

Our gamble with the weather on Saturday paid off, and we had a jam-packed busy day. We woke up early in hopes that the rain had stopped. Thankfully it had for the most part and the fog had cleared out while we slept. So, we backtracked to Dyrholaey, a spot that we skipped Friday. Dyrholaey is a rocky plateau and huge stone sea arch with black sand beaches and a lighthouse on one end. While we were there, the weather couldn’t make up its mind on what to do. The sun would come out for a bit and then the clouds would roll back in and start spitting out rain. One thing that never changed while we were there was the wind.

 

We spent a good amount of time at Dyrholaey wandering around, reading the signposts, and trying to get a glimpse of puffins as they flew out to the sea. We even took a 3km round-trip hike up to the lighthouse. This provided some phenomenal views of the sea arches, black sand beaches, and panoramic views of the mountains behind us.

Sea Stacks

Scott's NatGeo worthy photo of a puffin.

Afterwards, we headed back into Vik to see the second spot we had skipped yesterday and to get a closer look at the sea stacks called Reynisdrangur. Legend has it that trolls were stealing a ship when they got caught in the sun and that is how Reynisdrangur came to be. Just like Dyrholaey, our gamble paid off, and we got some great views of the sea stacks and even better views of the puffins. I was having a hard time getting zoomed in shots of the puffins, so Scott took over. His patience won out because he got some truly wonderful shots of the puffins.

Once we finished up at the black sand beaches, we stopped for second breakfast and hit the road again heading for Vatnajokull National Park. Along the way, we passed waterfall after waterfall. We never actually kept track of them, but it seemed every few minutes we were pointing them out to one another. With the coast to our right and mountains to our left, it was a beautiful drive. Eventually we came to the point where we could see the edge of Vatnajokull. This is a huge area made up of rivers, glaciers, and volcanoes. It covers 14% of Iceland and in the past day and a half it seems that all we’ve driven past has been glaciers and run off from those glaciers.

We stopped at a region of Vatnajokull known as Skaftafell. Here you are able to get right up nose to nose with a glacier and go on a couple of short but fantastic hikes. Upon arriving, we did head out to see the glacier. It is an incredible experience to get up that close to something so powerful in nature. The 1km walk out to the sandy hills in front of the glacier was protected and lulled you into thinking that the temperature was going to be nice while you were looking and exploring Skaftafellsjokull. However, as soon as you leave the trail, the wind picks up and whips across the river and ice and leaves you chilled to your core in no time at all. It turned into a game of layers on, layers off while we were visiting the park.

Skaftafellsjokull

Svartifoss

Skaftafellsjokull was full of people doing ice-climbing tours. We did not join them. Instead, we went on as hike to Svartifoss, otherwise known as Black Falls, after exploring the glacier. It was a 1.8km hike up there and definitely worth it. This waterfall is unlike any of the others we’ve seen so far on our trip. The rock surrounding it is made up of black basalt columns. Unlike the waterfalls from the other day, we did not get close enough to get sprayed. Instead, we continued on to a path that led to Sjonarsker, a viewing disc that provides exceptional views of the surrounding glaciers, mountains, lowlands, and even the coast if you look hard enough. The wind up here turned wicked again as there was nothing in the way to block it.

 

As you can imagine, we didn’t stay up here for very long. Just long enough to admire the scenery, get a couple photos, and share some water. Along the trail back down to the visitor center, we did pass some traditional turf houses. One of them was open and filled with relics from the past. Because, they were afraid of fire burning their homes down, these turf houses have no fireplaces. Instead, the barn is underneath the house so that the animal’s body heat would rise and warm the home. I cannot even imagine how cold it would have been here in the wintertime before modern conveniences!

 

Our final stop of the day was at Jokulsarlon. This is still a part of Vatnajokull National Park. Jokulsarlon is a glacier lagoon with icebergs drifting through it and out to sea. Our first time there, we just made a quick stop to see what it was before continuing on to our guesthouse. We were right down the road from it, so we checked in, had a very bland meal, and decided to head back to the lagoon since the sun had finally chased the clouds away for good. Around 8pm, we headed back to Jokulsarlon. Some of the icebergs are covered in dirt and ash, others are white, and my favorite ones were a clear crystal blue color. The icebergs come from the glacier Breidamerkurjoull and can spend years in the lagoon getting small enough to float out to sea. The lagoon is 260m deep and only 80 years old. (The glacier is retreating up the mountainside and has been since about 1930.)

There is a bridge spanning Jokulsa, the river leading from the lagoon to the ocean. We explored both sides of it.  My favorite part was watching the icebergs get swept out to sea. The current traps some of them and spits them back up on the shore.  We didn’t spend a long time at the lagoon because as with the rest of the day, the wind was biting, and both of us were worn out. It was an amazing day full of beautiful sights and great experiences.

Waterfalls & Skogar

Today we continued on our adventure around the Ring Road. We hit up part of the Southern boarder. After a delicious breakfast at Hotel Gullfoss, we drove about 90 minutes to our first destination of the day. We did make a few pitstops for gas, food, and to briefly checkout the Lava and Earthquake center. Our first stop of the day was at Seljalandsfoss. (Your guess as to how to pronounce it is as good as ours.) Seljalandsfoss is a huge waterfall with a series of smaller ones between it and another large waterfall called Gljufurarbui.

Entrance to Gljufurarbui

Inside Gljufurarbui

Upon arriving, Scott and I decided to work our way backwards and start with Gljufurarbui first. This waterfall is partially hidden behind an open air cave for lack of a better term. You are able to see the very top of it outside the cave, but need to go inside in order to see the entire thing. Scott led the way and lent a helping hand to me when it was needed. We walked along rocks sticking out of the water by the edge of the cave. The spray coming off of the waterfall and the rocks surrounding us were all freezing. Scott took the brunt of the spray as he was leading the way into the cave and got closer to it than what I did. We took a wonderful selfie of ourselves right before we headed out of the cave. I think our photo says it all! It was awesome to witness but rather chilly!

Seljalandsfoss

Next, we made our way back down the path towards Seljalandsfoss. It's not a very far distance between the two. With this waterfall, we were able to follow the path and walk behind it. We didn't hang out behind here for long. I got some photos on the way there, took a short video of what the fall looked like from a side angle, and we hustled on out of there.

We then headed for Skogarfoss, but made a quick pitstop at the Eyjafjallajokull Visitor's Center. We did get a trick on how to pronounce that work and it goes like this: round your mouth and say 'I forgot my yogurt' as one word. Strangely enough, it does get the point across! Just like our luck with the guided tours in the past two days, the visitor's center was closed. I was looking forward to going in and learning some information about the volcano. This is the one that erupted in 2010 and caused tons of flights to be cancelled in and out of Europe because of the ash it emitted.

Platform overlooking Skogafoss.

Our official second stop of the day was at Skogarfoss, another huge waterfall. This one has 527 steps that lead to a platform overlooking the top of it. These same steps also lead to a 24km hike that can be done in a day according to our guide book. We walked a little ways up the path, but didn't go very far because we weren't really prepared for any kind of long trek. The sights were beautiful up along the top of the waterfall.

Once we got back down to the bottom, Scott did make his way to the back of the waterfall. He said he couldn't go all the way around to the back. I watched him disappear into the mist! lol

Our last stop of the day was at the Skogar Folk Museum. It turned out to be pretty cool and offered a lot of information about traditional Icelandic life and a look into what houses used to look like. Since there's not a lot of trees here, people used to build their homes out of rock, turf, and into the side of the mountains. Driftwood was a hot commodity. If you lived on the coast and it landed on your property, then you would carve your initials into it, and it was was yours even if you didn't haul it away before it was washed away again. We also learned that farmers made the majority of their own tools and were a jack of all trades.

The museum was cool but ate up a lot of out time today. While we were in there the clouds/ fog rolled in and there was a heavy mist. We drove quite close to the coast and couldn't see much of anything. By the time we got to our guesthouse, we decided to head into Vik for dinner. There we made the decision to head to get up early tomorrow in hopes that the rain and clouds will have cleared away a bit so that we can go to the coast and see some puffins, a lighthouse, and sea stacks.