Perry and Robyn's Travel Blog: Europe 2019 : Day 20 East Iceland Fjords

Wednesday 28th August

As mentioned the other day, we’ve been travelling around Iceland in an anti-clockwise direction generally following Route 1, otherwise known as the Ring Road. This was only completed in 1974 (to mark the 1,100 anniversary of the country’s settlement) with the building of the final bridge in the southeast. The road is pretty good, one lane each way, and well-maintained with a maximum speed limit of 90kph, which seems about right. A number of the bridges in the south of the island are single-lanes which seem to confuse some tourist drivers. Our driver tended to steer clear of these vehicles as best he could while carrying on an amusing commentary about their driving skills. There may have been a few sections of the ring road that were unpaved but I might have gotten a bit confused when our driver took short cuts to save time.

First stop of the morning was at Stokksnes, about 30 minutes outside Hofn. It’s another black sand beach where it’s possible to imagine you are walking on water. The beach is a wide flat expanse with a very, very slight gradient that lets a small amount of water sit on the sand and, if you stand in the right place, seems to blend sea and sky so it appears that you are walking on the water.

A short time later we stopped off at an imitation Viking village along the coast. This had originally been built for a film or tv series that had never been completed. Not sure about its level of accuracy. An amusing interlude before the driving part of the day.

We were now on the east coast of Iceland and the bulk of the morning was spent driving to our main destination of the day. The countryside here is marked by a large number of fjords (the “lovely crinkly edges”) along the coast. There was the odd stop here and there, but not for long. Just looking out the bus window was enough.

Lunch was in the small east coast fishing village of Djúpivogur. Probably soup again.

The main item on the day's agenda was a long hike to a couple of waterfalls, Hengifoss and Litlanesfoss. These fall off a high plateau above a long glacial valley. The tour website quotes this as being a three-hour hike (mostly uphill) though our guide stated that he hadn't ever had a group who did it in more that two and a quarter. Robyn and I decided to aim to get to the first one and then see how we felt. There was only one way up and one way back, and we could keep the parking area in sight at all times so we weren't worried. Added to that and the sun was trying to come out. The climb looked hard, we found a nice resting spot and as expected we made it up to the first waterfall level and decided to just sit and take in the view. It was worth it.