Friday 15 July 2005

Myvatn (Reykjahlíð) - Egilstaðir: 164 km (102 mi)

After breakfast we take the ring road no 1 eastbound to Egilstaðir. The scenery is grand and empty. There is not a single town or village of more than 3 houses for over 140 km. We drive through bold plains and green valleys with fast running glacier rivers. We arrive in Egilstaðir around 10am. Hotel Egilstödum is beautifully set on the lakeshores of lake Lögarinn. The town itself is not very likable. Our room is not ready yet and after coffee we drive up to Borgarfjörður. After a 70km drive we arrive in Bakargerði, a hamlet of 120 people. It has a small harbour, a shop and a post office (every village has one) and is the starting point for lots of walking trails. We eat lunch in the only restaurant available: a meat soup, for which they ask no less than 1000 kroner (€13). Having dealt with this shock we drive out to a lookout where we can watch a bird colony. There are several 10 thousands of puffins, fulmars and kittiwakes. Great to see and watch, but there is a bit of a guano stench to the place. We drive back to Egilstaðir and settle in our room.

In the afternoon we drive to Seyðisfjörður a port inside the fjord of the same name. This is the place where the weekly ferries from Denmark, Norway and the Faeroe come in. It is a colorful town in a magnificent looking fjord. We eat and drink a bit in the art center. Later on we want to have dinner in the posh Aldan hotel, but it has been fully booked. We then drive back to  Egilstaðir and have dinner in our own hotel, which is fine too.

Weather: sunny, max 20°C /  68°F

Saturday 16 July 2005

Egilstaðir - Höfn: 233 km (145 mi)

We leave Egilstaðir in a southerly direction and follow the ring road no. 1. This means that  we leave a number of fjords aside and take the short cut straight to Breiðalsvik along a couple of unsealed stretches of the ring road. We miss that town accidentally and after more than 2 hours we get to Djúpivogar. Also nicely situated in a fjord. We have lunch here in Hotel Framtið (future) next to the port where the boats to the bird island of Papey leave daily. We do not go for that, but rather carry on along the beautiful fjord coast in the direction of Höfn, where we arrive around 2pm at the Youth Hostel. A very simple Youth Hostel once again, but functional. In Höfn there is not an awful lot to do, but it does have a beautiful backdrop of the ice covered mountains and a lagoon. We make a stroll through town and to a bird colony near the port before we return to the hostel for check-in and blankets. In the afternoon we visit the Ice museum, an exhibition about glaciers and other Icelandic natural phenomena. It turns out that this part of the country was the stage for scenes in two James Bond movies: "View to a Kill" (1986) and "Die another day" (2002).

We eat at restaurant Vikin. Good food, but the place looks very dull. In Höfn too, the local youths drive all night long around town a kind of permanent orbit. Later that evening we go for a drive to Stoksnes peninsula, but an off limits NATO radar post prevents us from going very far. 

Weather: some clouds with sunny spells 18°C / 64°F

Sunday 17 July 2005

We rise early as we have booked a Skidoo tour on the glacier. We drive to the meet up point off the ring road no. 1. We are being picked up by a 4WD bus of Glacier Jeeps which drives us up the mountain over a rough and winding track. At the end of the road is mountain station where we pay for the tour and get our warm and waterproof clothes as well as a crash helmet. Jon, our guide, gives us an instruction on the use of the snow scooters. After that we are on our way. An exciting adventure. At first a bit strange. The scooters are two-seaters. After 3 km we stop for taking pictures swapping seats. The driving is harder than it looks. Our scooter is second in line and I have to keep up with Jon. Normally the tour lasts about 5km and back, but this time we cover twice that distance. Why is not very clear, but who complains? We drive further up, but we end up in thick fog. At that point we turn around. After a good hour we are back at the mountain station. It was good fun and a great experience. The scooters are fairly fast (35km/hr or 22 mi/hr) and on the ice it is really superb

Glacier Jeeps offers food inside the mountain station, but it is rather expensive. We have brought our own and spend some time sunbathing outside on the sun deck. The drive down to the valley is great and back at our own car we drive back to Höfn.

In the afternoon we visit the swimming pool. Every hamlet in Iceland has one and they are quite busy too. The way other nations go to the pub or coffee shop to socialize, people here go to the pool. Before you can jump in you have to go through the process of taking off your shoes at the entrance and proceed to the single sex changing rooms. You then have to strip and take a shower using soap. A sign indicates which body parts have to be treated with soap: head, arm pits, genital area and the feet.  Only then you put on your bathing trunks and jump in the pool. In Höfn it is a very small pool. Most Icelanders though, hardly swim at all, but rather spend most of the time chatting in the hot tubs. 

Later in the afternoon we have a beer on the sundeck of the local café and for dinner we have a pizza in the restaurant Osin in the Höfn hotel.

Weather: morning fog and cold. Later clear sky and sunny. Max. 16°C / 60°F

Monday 18 July 2005

Höfn - Skaftafell: 155 km (96mi)

After our self prepared breakfast we head westwards along the south coast. On our right hand the snow and ice capped mountains are a permanent feature. The glacier is Vatnajökul. In every valley however it has a local name. After some 70 km we arrive at point where the glacier reaches all the way down to the sea at a lagoon called, Jökulsarlon or glacier lagoon. Here the glacier sheds large lumps of blue ice, which then slowly float through the lagoon into the sea. It is a beautiful sight. A famous picture, shown in every book about Iceland. Also the stage of a scene in “Die another Day” , the Bond movie. Boat trips on the lagoon can be made with an amphibious craft. We do not do that. You do not see anything you could not see from the lake side.

We drive on – after taking lots of pictures and drinking a cup of coffee  - to Skaftafel national park, where we stay at the hotel with the same name.  The hotel is a bit obscure, as it situated outside the national park without any signposting. But inquiries at the hotel’s reception confirm that we have indeed found the right place. The hotel is fine, situated in the middle of nowhere. The staff is housed in cabins behind the hotel. We go to the park’s information center to buy a map with walking trails. We decide to walk to Svartifoss (black falls). That is about 45 minutes of climbing uphill. From there we cross the Skaftafellsheiði plain in the direction of the Sjonarnipa lookout. The mountain plain, is very green with tiny flowers. Sjonarnipa offers views of the glacier. Via Eystragil (a canyon) we walk back to our starting point. In total the walk lasted about 2 ¾ hrs. We drive back to the hotel and shower. We wait for dinner. There is not much else to do! We eat in the hotel. The food is good, although Erik’s chicken filet with pasta is a bit simple for 2400 kroner. We splash out for once and order a whole bottle of wine. 

Weather: sunny start, later cloudy and a slight drizzle. 15°C / 59°F