Woke up to a beautiful bright sunny day in Myvatn. Perfect for day for driving to the Eastern Fjords. We could see two new distant mountains due to the extra clear skies. Our target for the evening is Höfdavik, located in the largest forest in Iceland. But there are not many forests in Iceland, so it is really special. This forest is also on a large glacial lake and in it is their famous giant worm monster. Kind of a relative to Nessie in Scotland and Champ in Lake Champlain the worm monster has a long history any many sightings. It was last seen and captured on video in 2012. You may remember the international news coverage of it.
As we left Myvatn, we had to join the Ring Road again and passed by the geothermal mud pots again. They looked very different in the bright sunlight. We snapped a few photos as we traveled down the road. We could see snow covered mountains shinning brightly in the distance. As the days and miles passed, they grew closer and changed in appearance.
Some of the landscape was very lunar looking, lots of gray dust and rocks in a gently sloping landscape. There were no signs of sheep this area. The usual sign indicating the farmsteads names were missing. The landscape slowly came alive the further east we went. Changing to slightly greener mountains and steep valleys with melting snow and seasonal waterfalls.
We made a few little stops to look at points of interest, the landscape, and to grab a few photos along the way. One stop of interest was a farm that had some traditional turf sheep houses on them and an old smithy that has been there since 1550. However, the smithy was mostly likely built on the site of a much earlier and abandoned church. The craftsmanship has endured intact and the buildings could still be used today (if they weren’t on display for touristas). The unusual construction of both types of buildings was fantastic. The walls were at least 4 large stones thick, topped with many layers of turf. Inside the wooden roof made from birch tree trunks that appeared filled with what looked like lichens and outside grass. They were very dark but snug and keep the wind out very efficiently.
We started looking for a canyon many miles down a dirt road, but the road turned into an F-road (mountain road), which the RV is not rated for, so we turned around and headed back to the Ring Road. Taking that detour did offer up some beautiful views of the valleys that we would have missed along the Ring Road.
Our next stop was one of the larger towns of Egilsstadir. The campground here is more than just your average campground. Here they have a café and bar, a hostel, a nice communal kitchen and dining room, a living room / lounge area, really clean bathrooms and showers, and a nice laundry room. It was like an outpost on an old western trail, attracting lots of people (the most we’ve seen out and about in the countryside so far) and travelers of all kinds (like the solo bicyclist who hadn’t done laundry in ten days).
Like him, we were able to do our laundry at last!
Icelanders are very attuned to the weather which accounts for all the people we’re seeing in the campgrounds around Egilsstadir. It’s one of the first stretches of nice weather (60 + degrees), which had brought out all the campers in these parts. Since the weather is not so good in other parts of the countries this week, so they have flocked to this area.
We will be meeting up with our friend Bob, who has traveled up to Akureyri today. We’ll be taking time to tour the area so he should catch up with us sometime tomorrow.
Looks like there is weather heading our way.
We love your blog! Can’t wait to go back to Iceland. Thanks for sharing your trip. So cool that you are meeting up with Mr. T!
These are amazing photos! What great landscape to get lost in. Guess I’ll go outside now and look at the weeds and cicadas.