Iceland - Part III of IV - North Ring Road

As I suspected would happen... I got sucked into work and with all the writing I've been doing there I've had no creative energy left to finish these posts.... But I will persevere!

We are also fast approaching the passage of one year since we returned to American soil for the final time...

Back in Iceland --

We found ourselves in a nice guesthouse in Egilsstaðir, with very helpful staff! There was a full shared kitchen so we bought ourselves 2kg of lamb, some garlic and rosemary, and made ourselves a pile of lambchops and crushed garlic. My god was it delicious. I had only had bites of lamb once or twice previously and was not too impressed with the flavor. It took a little getting used to but by the end of the first kg I was converted. I later gave lamb a shot back in the US and WOW were the flavors different. The lamb in the US has a much milder flavor; I read because of how they finish feeding the sheep on corn instead of grass, that reduces the strong taste of the meat.

The next day dawned dark, dank, and cold. We debated on whether we should even try going anywhere since the sky looked so threatening. We tried anyway, to go see two waterfalls, Litlanesfoss and Hengifoss.

We parked at one of the twinned trailheads that traveled up the mountain on either side of the stream and decided to walk up on the left.

As expected, another short and steep hike. Vitali and I ended up arguing all the way up, which made this hike memorable, lol. AND he really had to pee and there was no where to go!

The autumnal landscape was pretty standard for Iceland except along the water, which was lined with exposed basalt columns. We worried briefly that we had done the ring road backwards due to it being the end of the season and the north side obviously being a little higher latitude. Turns out the direction we went was better because our final leg, the Westfjords, were still near peak.

There were actually three waterfalls along here, the final and highest one graced by sheer walls punctuated by layers of red clay. It was quite striking. It was also very windy -- we had to hold each of my tripod's legs to keep the whole thing from vibrating.

We had seen so many waterfalls by that point we didn't even walk up to the bottom -- we took our shots from afar and then hiked back down and headed back to our guesthouse, where we enjoyed being warm and dry. We made lamb again, this time with falafel.

In the morning, we packed up the car and headed east towards the ocean to a small village called Seydisfjordur, which is apparently known for its brightly colored homes. We were less interested in the homes though, and more interested in a sound sculpture called Tvísöngur. But first, a small waterfall!

We hiked up a steep gravel road and then turned off onto a short trail to the location of the sculpture. We weren't sure what to expect.

The sculpture consists of five domes, with each dome having its own resonance that corresponds to a tone in the Icelandic musical tradition of five-tone harmony, and works as a natural amplifier to each specific tone. We explored in and around the sculpture, testing out our voices. I sang a little bit and it sounded much better than it would have otherwise...

We saw no one, and headed back down towards town, passing a small boat and excellent examples of Icelandic architecture.

We headed back towards the ring road and headed north. We passed this stunning waterfall -- I had to beg Vitali to turn around and pull over so I could photograph.

Not before long we turned left towards the interior of the island and drove down a small road towards Stuðlagil canyon. The sun peeked out a few times, which was nice to see after what felt like weeks in the darkness.

We passed another waterfall somewhere in between.

It wasn't too busy as we approached the first parking lot so we drove to the second, closer lot, parked and got ready for the short walk to the canyon proper.

Not 500 meters from the parking lot was Stuðlafoss, another waterfall tumbling over basalt columns, and some nearby fluffy sheep.

The first portion of the walk went through grazing fields filled with rotund sheep, looking like plump little cotton balls sitting on the grass.

As we approached the named area of the canyon we could see the walls around the river start to rise and go from regular irregular rock to more uniform -- first really fat basalt columns and then more slender.

Because of the rain the water in the canyon was muddy -- supposedly when it's not raining the water is a striking blue.

We walked along the river and marveled at how the basalt columns would wave and undulate. They were at once mighty and solid like they had been there unchanged for an epoch -- and at other places so mutable and organic like they were made merely of clay.

We walked down to the water at one point and hopped along the slippery column tops to get a better look. The water was flowing deceptively quick, so we decided to not chance our luck and head back towards terra firma. It began to rain as we walked back.

We headed back to the ring road, passing more ash fields.

We continued west past Mývatn and turned off the ring road towards our accommodations for the next two nights -- a lovely guesthouse that, for the first time in Iceland -- included a wonderful breakfast.

It was set amongst a desolate landscape of heartbreaking beauty.

In the morning, we headed north from the ring road to Ásbyrgi Canyon, a glacial canyon near the town of Skinnastaðir. This is the closest to the Arctic Circle we got -- we debated going to see Arctic Henge but it was another two hours of driving one way. We were only 30 minutes of latitude away -- about 30 miles as the crow flies.

We passed a lot of really interesting lava. It's amazing to catch something in action that has a timespan of thousands of years.

We passed Mývatn again, (lake of midges), which sits atop an area of high volcanic activity. The water was quite still in the morning, and across the lake we could see a geothermal plant.

There was a huge cinder cone in the distance that piqued our curiosity...

Most of the countryside we passed through was full of sheeps, and cloaked in a beautiful deep red-brown of late fall.

At one end of Mývatn was the geothermal area of Hverir and the geothermal plant. We'd stop at the geothermal area later.

The landscape reverted to endless lava as we approached our destination.

We drove into the canyon and watched as the walls around us raised dramatically until we were surrounded on all sides. We parked and headed down one of the many trails in the area and found a beautiful green pond. There was one duck working on important duck business.

There were a few people here but not too many. We hiked around the side of the lake to get another view then headed back to the car.

Next stop: Hljóðaklettar, the echo rocks -- another basalt formation which had the curious effect of bouncing and amplifying sound. We didn't know that until after.

We parked and headed to the viewpoint of the area -- which didn't look like a whole lot besides some jumbled undulations in the landscape, until we started getting closer.

We set out on the trail between the formations to get a better look. Before long we realized that the same basalt columns that lended such uniqueness to this place also meant we were walking over hexagonal rocks at irregular heights for most of the trail... that got old fast.

The way these very geometric formations suddenly would bend and wave and be supple -- amazed us. We came to the deepest part of the trail, where we came across a fold in the landscape -- a dramatic basalt formation. It was here that we tested the echos -- Vitali spoke at a normal volume from about 200' away and I could hear him clearly. It was amazing.

We walked back and minded our voices since now we knew they carried...

Both the column formations we just saw and our next stop, Dettifoss, were in Vatnajökull National Park. Dettifoss is reputed to be the second most powerful waterfall in all of Europe. We approached from above this time, passing an unusual landscape of broken tops of basalt columns.

Before long we found ourselves at the edge of a mind-blowingingly huge waterfall. It's a shame there's no scale in these pictures...

We continued on the trail upstream to another waterfall, Hafragilsfoss, which was, as expected, also stunning.

There was another waterfall beyond that but we were tired, so we headed back to the car.

Somewhere we came across another waterfall -- and then made it back to the car and drove back to our guesthouse.

Back at the guesthouse we found a few beautiful ponies chilling in the fields nearby in the late afternoon light. The days were getting shorter -- the sun was rising around 7:45 and setting around 5:45. Winter was coming. The ponies were fuzzy.

My tendon had been hurting and a little bit swollen over the last few days but at least the weather was forecast to clear by sunset -- and it did. The view of the tractors was the view out our window.

In the morning we drove to Höfði, a park on Lake Mývatn, a small area with a trail to some unique rocks. The last of the fall foliage was hanging on, and it was quiet. There were a lot of plants that had just died for the winter, which was interesting to see.

We reached the end of the trail and saw some rocks that weren't super exciting...

We headed back and then stopped by Dimmuborgir, the Black Fortress, a dramatic lava bed that was supposed to be cool to hike through. We took one look and all the hikes we had ever undertaken on lava flashed through our eyes -- that is to say -- we knew this was going to be uncomfortable to walk, so we took a look, and went on our way.

We then headed for Grjótagjá, thermal caves, made famous by the TV series Game of Thrones. Bathing here goes back to the 18th century and I'm not so sure that I would be inclined to take a dip, but perhaps if I was desperate. It reminded us of the cenotes in Mexico. What if there was an earthquake, which are daily occurrences on the island?

Next stop for the day: Hverir. Which we had driven past multiple times but had not yet made the stop. We parked, paid a few dollars, and set out on the trail towards the open landscape.

Steam rose up from cracks in the earth, mud pots bubbled away, and one became very aware of the violence happening in the earth below our feet and its slumbering power.

We walked around, looking at the various features as the sun peeked out! At this point, I'm pretty sure we were Vitamin D deficient from the lack of sunlight.

We wandered around for awhile and then headed back; we had another stop today -- to Viti Crater. Yet another sight to see along the Diamond Circle. On the way to the crater we drove through the geothermal harvesting area which was fascinating.

We drove up to the crater and parked. It was just a regular crater...

On the way back down we stopped at an overlook of the area which was incredible.

We saw this massive cinder cone in the distance and decided to check it out -- there was a strava segment around the rim... We parked and walked the very short hike up to the top. This one was called Hverfjall. I set up my camera as Vitali ran around the entire thing!.

Here's a video of Vitali running in the strong wind.

The views from the top were beautiful. Vitali made it back and we headed down, wrapping up our sightseeing and then heading west, towards Goðafoss.

We made it back to the waterfall we had parked but decided not to visit two weeks ago, selected a side and parked, and walked up towards the falls. Gorgeous. Just gorgeous.

After, we packed up and drove west, to Akureyri, one of the larger towns in Iceland. We began to see the mountains of the north, cloaked in glaciers and last season's snow.

We pulled into town, which had a remarkable amount of contemporary architecture and found our hostel, which was quite empty. There was a lot of vernacular architecture in the town too, including a home built in the 19th century and clad in tiles imported from America.

We stopped by the grocery store and accidentally bought 50% beef/50% horse salami. It was delicious.

In the morning we packed up and continued north around the tip of Tröllaskagi, a peninsula with 167 alpine glaciers. The route we were now following is called the Arctic way. It was overcast and rainy -- but I would recommend it highly anyway.

We passed fields of lava, ponies, mountains, and the sea.

We finally approached our accommodations for the night, outside of the town of Sauðárkrókur. The road we followed passed over little islets and sandbars in the ocean before arriving at the most remote, desolate, and melancholy place we had ever seen. It was as if we had made our entire journey to end up here, at the ends of the earth.

We were a little early so we messaged the host and before long someone came walking up to welcome us into the little farmhouse converted to guesthouse. It was so, unbelievably, adorable. I wanted to live there.

We found our name on the whiteboard with the room we were assigned, then headed into town to find the only grocery store -- which ended up being the building below that had no signage whatsoever. We had a serious discussion before we went in what we would do if it turned out this wasn't a grocery store and instead some sort of cult.

It was indeed a real grocery store, and they even had gluten-free pizza!

So we headed back, made pizza, and enjoyed being inside and dry. In the morning, we also had pizza, and then reluctantly packed up and headed to our next destination.

We wanted to see Glaumbær, a historic farm and now museum which has been occupied since the 9th century. It was so fucking cold and windy this morning, we debated not visiting at all once we arrived and saw the conditions...

We did gather the courage though, figuring we'd be inside for at least part of the visit. We peeked inside the outbuildings for a taste of the history of the area, and saw incredible examples of extremely fine metalwork and embroidery. Everything was scaled slightly tinier than present-day proportions.

The next building we went in was decorated as it would have been in the 18th centuries.

The front room was done up in a bright blue with examples of high-quality handmade wood furniture.

Finally -- we made it to the turf houses, the reason we were here. On one side were these little gable ends with yellow rafters that were entrances to single rooms that housed things like tools and a blacksmith shop. The building walls were mostly constructed out of turf due to a lack of building stone and of course wood in the area.

We walked around the exterior before making our way into one of the doors, which went through a long hallway acting as a vestibule before entering the living spaces. There was a kitchen, a room for storing meat in whey and kegs of skyr, and the baðstofa, the combo eating/living/sleeping room, where everyone would gather during the long days of winter. The guide said 22 people would fit in the room, 2 to a bed. The farm owner and wife had a separate room at the end of the space and the laborers of the farm would sleep here; the women had beds by the window for their needlework. Every bed had thick coverings to keep warm during the night. The tour guide also told us under the bed's pillows were where people kept personal things -- there was an unspoken etiquette of under a pillow being a totally private space that would never be disturbed by others.

Amazing -- it looked pretty well equipped to survive and Icelandic winter. We packed up and continued west, passing several churches.

We headed west through mountains, experiencing the first snow we had seen here.

We found a field of ponies huddled up by a gate and stopped to pet them. They were very wet...

Look -- dumpsters with a view!

We drove next to Borgarvirki, a basalt column formation built up into a fortress. According to folklore of the people of this area, the Htúnavatn district, used this natural high ground as defense when the chieftains of Borgarfjörður attacked them in the 11th century.

Anakin, I have the high ground!!!

Then we drove the remaining 280km to the Westfjords, where we would spend the final days of our trip.