ICELAND RING ROAD part 3 (July 14-25, 2018)
Woke up finally feeling like our bodies were acclimating to this Nordic time zone. It was bright outside when we woke, shocking!! Loaded up the car under nice blue skies with a few cotton ball clouds, nice!
I'm going to insert a map marked up to show you where we were the first couple of days, fyi the distance marked 450 miles from Selfoss to Hofn was actually km, 279 miles. This map will also help explain that waiting until last minute to book lodgings really can modify your plans...rooms don't necessarily exist every 100 miles on this island. like us, you might need to drive 450km to Hofn to find a bed! There are 3 of us and when we searched the area around Vik we found only a couple places available that would require us to rent 2 rooms...at quite a price I might add! The reason we decided to stay around Selfoss for 3 nights, I'm a cheap bast$#@! for starters, but honestly it's kinda centralized for the many sights in South Iceland and ended up just right for us. We could easily day trip as far as Vik approximately 150km/ 2 hours, and that's where we headed this day.
Beautiful and colorful open country, majestic mountains to the north and a distant seashore to the south to drive along, we could actually see the Westman Island's (Vestmannaeyjar) . Would have liked taking the 35 minute ferry over, but not in the cards this trip. Our plan was to drive non-stop just shy of Vik, but we found coffee breaks and beautiful farms to roam around in. One field we hiked through had friendly sheep, and I discovered one with a face that should have been in Braveheart!
Once we finally neared Vik we stopped at Reynisfjara, an incredible black sand beach. There were caves, interesting rock formations called basalt stacks, a view of an arch at the end of the beach, colorful paragliders soaring above. Signs were posted warning about "Dangerous Sneaker Waves", we heard a woman was actually knocked down while walking the surf earlier. They had a little cafe in the parking lot and we enjoyed a cold Gull beer and ate a sandwich that we brought. This is a spot where having a camper would be ideal, we could have spent all day there.
After a couple hours we were on the road heading west back towards base camp. As I mentioned the Lonely Planet guides are nice to have. Donna would read interesting tid bits and tell us what sights we were coming up to. Next stop Skogafoss falls. It would be easy to simply park and walk 100 yards and take the pic and motor on, but walking in, around and up and over all the falls we visited was amazing. The views above the falls is worth the price of admission, which is free!
With tired legs we eased back into the Subaru and pressed on. Not far away is the famous Seljalandsfoss , a towering waterfall that you can walk behind. By the way, most of the falls and other sites in South Iceland are right off of the main road, so easy to tour! As we approached Seljalandsfoss we noticed several tour buses and the parking lot was packed, no problem the lesser known Gjufrabui canyon fall is right down the dirt road. Again if we had a camper this is one place we would stay for sure! The two falls are right next to each other and it's an incredibly beautiful spot.
After we put our soaking wet rain suits away we hit the road. We will be heading back this way in the morning so we hoped to find less people at Seljalandsfoss earlier in the day! What next...how about soaking our tired legs in Iceland's oldest geothermal pool Vadmalahver aka Secret Lagoon. This cool little locals place was close to our cabin in Fludir. Before anyone goes into a pool/spa here they must shower first and most certainly do not wear your shoes into the shower rooms, our local hall monitor made sure I followed the rules! The chest deep pool was nice and warm and even hot in certain parts. The steam rising from the small pools surrounding the larger pool was cool. Oh, and they served 16 ounce cans of cold Gull beer, doubly cool!!
Relaxed and with rosy cheeks we wandered the rural back roads towards our cabin. It was around 10pm when we finally made it home to cook a late supper! I think the Nordic light at 10pm is certainly a photographers Golden Hour in Iceland!
To be continued........
Woke up finally feeling like our bodies were acclimating to this Nordic time zone. It was bright outside when we woke, shocking!! Loaded up the car under nice blue skies with a few cotton ball clouds, nice!
I'm going to insert a map marked up to show you where we were the first couple of days, fyi the distance marked 450 miles from Selfoss to Hofn was actually km, 279 miles. This map will also help explain that waiting until last minute to book lodgings really can modify your plans...rooms don't necessarily exist every 100 miles on this island. like us, you might need to drive 450km to Hofn to find a bed! There are 3 of us and when we searched the area around Vik we found only a couple places available that would require us to rent 2 rooms...at quite a price I might add! The reason we decided to stay around Selfoss for 3 nights, I'm a cheap bast$#@! for starters, but honestly it's kinda centralized for the many sights in South Iceland and ended up just right for us. We could easily day trip as far as Vik approximately 150km/ 2 hours, and that's where we headed this day.
Beautiful and colorful open country, majestic mountains to the north and a distant seashore to the south to drive along, we could actually see the Westman Island's (Vestmannaeyjar) . Would have liked taking the 35 minute ferry over, but not in the cards this trip. Our plan was to drive non-stop just shy of Vik, but we found coffee breaks and beautiful farms to roam around in. One field we hiked through had friendly sheep, and I discovered one with a face that should have been in Braveheart!
Once we finally neared Vik we stopped at Reynisfjara, an incredible black sand beach. There were caves, interesting rock formations called basalt stacks, a view of an arch at the end of the beach, colorful paragliders soaring above. Signs were posted warning about "Dangerous Sneaker Waves", we heard a woman was actually knocked down while walking the surf earlier. They had a little cafe in the parking lot and we enjoyed a cold Gull beer and ate a sandwich that we brought. This is a spot where having a camper would be ideal, we could have spent all day there.
After a couple hours we were on the road heading west back towards base camp. As I mentioned the Lonely Planet guides are nice to have. Donna would read interesting tid bits and tell us what sights we were coming up to. Next stop Skogafoss falls. It would be easy to simply park and walk 100 yards and take the pic and motor on, but walking in, around and up and over all the falls we visited was amazing. The views above the falls is worth the price of admission, which is free!
With tired legs we eased back into the Subaru and pressed on. Not far away is the famous Seljalandsfoss , a towering waterfall that you can walk behind. By the way, most of the falls and other sites in South Iceland are right off of the main road, so easy to tour! As we approached Seljalandsfoss we noticed several tour buses and the parking lot was packed, no problem the lesser known Gjufrabui canyon fall is right down the dirt road. Again if we had a camper this is one place we would stay for sure! The two falls are right next to each other and it's an incredibly beautiful spot.
After we put our soaking wet rain suits away we hit the road. We will be heading back this way in the morning so we hoped to find less people at Seljalandsfoss earlier in the day! What next...how about soaking our tired legs in Iceland's oldest geothermal pool Vadmalahver aka Secret Lagoon. This cool little locals place was close to our cabin in Fludir. Before anyone goes into a pool/spa here they must shower first and most certainly do not wear your shoes into the shower rooms, our local hall monitor made sure I followed the rules! The chest deep pool was nice and warm and even hot in certain parts. The steam rising from the small pools surrounding the larger pool was cool. Oh, and they served 16 ounce cans of cold Gull beer, doubly cool!!
Relaxed and with rosy cheeks we wandered the rural back roads towards our cabin. It was around 10pm when we finally made it home to cook a late supper! I think the Nordic light at 10pm is certainly a photographers Golden Hour in Iceland!
To be continued........
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