We set off a little earlier today but not before taking care of the usual RV tanks stuff, hitting the local outside hot pot with mountain views and finally stopping at the local bakery to bring some second breakfast on the road.

Our goal for today was to get to Drangsnes for the evening. They have some little hot pots right by the sea side. Like a siren’s call, sea side and hotspots, shout out the possibilities of amazing views while having a soak. We’ll have to see tomorrow morning. We pulled in at about 9:30 pm. With so many hours of daylight, it’s easy to lose track of time.

Our travels today took us around and sometime through many fjords. A few times we went through some very long tunnels. These new and improved roads are short cuts that take you under the mountains. One of them was one way though a good part of it. They had designed many pull outs on one side to give drivers a place to move over for on coming traffic. Lucky for us, we were not going in the direction with the pull outs so we had the right of way. There was adjoining road from another that fed into and out of the main tunnel, creating a forked road inside the tunnel. After we left the road and got to the town to do some food shopping, we could see another tunnel entry/exit opening high up on the mountain.  There was a lot of coming and going in that mountain.

The main highlight of the day was the going to visit the lovely Dynjandi waterfalls. A very large majestic, multi-tiered vail waterfall. I walked part way up. My knees started complaining about the uneven rocky path right away. However Paul’s knees did not complain and he made it up to the vail. 

Dynjandi Waterfalls from parking area
A long view of the falls from the parking lot. You can see some a few of the lower falls tops just peeking out of the landscape.
Close up view from below waterfalls
For some scale, there are a few people walking down from the falls in the bottom right. If you look at the bottom right of the main falls, you’ll see some little dark shapes, those are also some people. Intrepid souls who made the trek up to the view them up close.

While there are waterfalls (and sheep) just about everywhere you look in Iceland, big ones, little ones, pouring down ones, and ones that just dribble down over the rocks as they come off the snow covered mountains, we made a special trip to see these falls in particular. To get to Dynjandi falls we had to drive through many high desolate looking mountains. If you look at the topographic maps of the area on Google maps, these higher elevations appear as brown areas. When you’re down below them they appear as vast medium brown-grayish colored, barren mountain tops. Its not until you get up into them, that you see that they are not just bare rock, it is very much alive up there. The gray coloring is actually an olive-sage colored moss with light yellowish flowers blooming all over them. 

Mountain top rocks covered with moss detail
This is an example of the moss that covers the rocks that appear to be barren mountain tops.

You might be asking how many fjords does it take before you get bored and never see another one? Incredibly, each fjord is different. They each have a personality, a unique profile and perspective, and sometimes different weather, with different villages and farms tucked in tightly on their coast line, folds or into the end points. The views of the landscape change their faces as you move to the other side of the fjords. You get a new and different look of the next peninsula in the distance, of that bump on the mountain that looked somewhat circular when coming from the front of it, was actually kind of a long triangle from the other side. 

Town at bottom of mountains in Iceland
An example of how villages, towns and cities tuck themselves into the folds of the nooks and crannies of the Fjords.
Believe it or not there’s a golf course down there.

As we left our last fjord for the night, we drove up a large mountain with many falls rushing down along side the road way. Cutting through the rock, chiseling interesting rock formations in the earth on its way down the mountain. And in some spot deep gouges had been formed by the force of the flowing water. As we reached the top of the mountain, it flattened out for a good long while. Up there on the top were many large deep snow patches, all melting away, into puddles and lakes both large and small. You could smell the snow in the brisk air (2 degrees C). Where the snow had fissured or pulled apart during the process of melting, some subtle shading appeared which was an amazing blue hue. The water flowing from this source is crystal clear. They tell us you can drink the water from any of these rivers and falls. Do not buy tourist water, bring a bottle with you and refill riverside. Which we see people do.

Crystal Clear Glacier
Some water fresh off the Glaciers.


Tomorrow we set off on a new adventure, so off to bed I go.