Iceland Day 6 – Eastern Fjords

The Long and Winding Road..,

Dare I say it? Another incredible morning…

We took a quick walk around town this morning, basically back to the area I was in last night to try and get pictures with a bit more sunlight; the sunlight cooperated, but the social media vixens did not – it was a bit comical if not a tad bit frustrating to watch them rotating poses and positions. Realizing we would not have an opportunity to take an unobstructed picture, we settled for what we could and quickly retreated.

After stopping to admire the beautiful Gufufoss Falls, we made our way back up and over the pass. If there was one thing that has frustrated me about Iceland, it is that there are very few pulloffs along the road. I am so used to hitting the brakes for a photo op and in Iceland, it is rarely possible – there is zero area to ever pull off (it is like the roads are all raised and there is a mere inches on the outside of the right line – so much so that I was in shock to see a police officer having pulled a car over and they were completely blocking the one lane of the two lane highway that is the Ring Road), so stopping for an inspirational scene is pretty much out of the question.

Today our drive was taking us in and out of the Eastern Fjords as we continue to make our way around the island back towards Keflavik. There is an easier way to go between the two places by taking the mountain pass instead of the windy roads that follow the fjords, but we didn’t want the “easy” way out, we wanted to see the remote parts so we opted for the longer way.

It wasn’t long until we hit our first bit of cloud cover; we were a bit sad but pulled ourselves together while recognizing the fact that we had been lucky beyond belief up until this point. The drive was spectacular, passing areas that geologically looked different than the previous areas we had passed. We definitely noticed that there was more green as we rounded the eastern side of the island but that the same rugged looking coastline was still present.

There was one area that Jenny kept commenting on as we passed that she just wished the sun would shine quickly on it as it was so beautiful. That word actually came up a lot again today and once again, Jenny announced that she thought today may have been the most beautiful drive we had had AND the one that felt most like the Iceland she had envisioned. There was no doubt it was impressive and there were certain areas, like the area Jenny wished would just light up from the sun, that were downright mystical. I told her it looked like elves or sprites should be hopping around up there.

As I said, it is difficult to stop on a whim, though I managed to do it a few times, like when I saw our first reindeer – a solo fellow just hanging out (which is exceptionally rare and since there is zero places for them to hide, we know they were alone). A few miles down the road we then saw a herd of about seven, and then another thirty or so miles we saw another small herd and finally one more small herd. Reindeer are not native but were introduced from Norway in the late 1700s. They had a hard time surviving in Iceland and were originally thought a failure until a herd was eventually spotted. Today, there are some 6,000-7,000 of them almost exclusively in the eastern part of Iceland and rarely seen this time of year, so we were feeling particularly lucky to see so many!

We made a few other stops along the way, not much to say about them but I will share some photos.

The one spur of the moment stop that stood out, was an enormous black sand beach, that turned out to be more of a black pebble beach but held Jenny’s fascination for a long time and she readily admitted she could have stayed on for hours more. As she plopped down and rooted around for rocks that caught her fancy, I spent time noticing all the little plants that miraculously make their home in this inhospitable environment. By the time we left, Jenny managed to assemble quite the collection of rocks and made sure to let me know that there would be no mixing with the ones I collected!

I am super lucky in that not only is Jenny a navigator extraordinaire, she figured out how to shut off the damn lane departure signals on “the bronze bandit” which reset every single flipping time I restart the car! It would have been pure torture for the both of us if she hadn’t taken that upon herself to rectify.

We pulled into Hofn around 6:30 and tried to get a table out at a restaurant but they were all full so we cut our losses and settled for another night of cup o’noodles in our hotel room – good thing I was prepared!

We have a long day tomorrow – with a lot of ground to cover and a lot of sights to see; it might be challenging getting an early go as we have yet to make it on to the road before 11:00 AM but I am keeping my fingers crossed we will manage tomorrow. The clouds are hanging heavy now and the forecast has turned south… I am hoping for the best but prepared for the inevitable. I suppose we can’t say we have experienced Iceland without dealing with the harsh climatic elements it is known for.