They say this is one of the most scenic beaches in Iceland. Certainly a lot of sand. Would love to hang here on a nice day, with a frisbee...
9:09am, Breidavik hotel.
Got to bed ~1am last night, 7:30am to rise. Still cloudy out, with heavy fog ~100' off the ground. Killed a couple flies in the room this morning. Cooked breakfast in the kitchen: eggs/tomatoes/onions/cheese (no butter/oil around), cereal blend with muesli and powdered milk. Some rugbread too. We're considering a walk on the beach. Pretty dreary looking outside though. Wonder if the drive back will be in fog…
3:25pm, on Ring Road, highway 1
Wendy is taking a turn driving this afternoon, after my right leg started getting tired, which allows me to write in the journal… We decided to make the short walk out to the beach this morning, hoping fog was on the way out. We passed several sheep grazing on the vegetation growing from the sand. The beach was at least a mile wide, and took a football field's walk to reach the waves. We touched the water, to say we reached the North Atlantic (not sure where the Artic ocean starts), The fog didn't improve any, so we walked back, and started the drive at 10:10am.
They say this is one of the most scenic beaches in Iceland. Certainly a lot of sand. Would love to hang here on a nice day, with a frisbee...
Looks like we caught low tide...
The road quickly led us up into the fog, where visibility all but dissapeared in some sections. At times it looked as though I was driving on a raised gravel road through the clouds. It was slow going. Eventually the road dropped down under the fog, and we contoured around several fjords. This scenario would repeat several times over the next 4 hours, though fortunately we escaped the fog after the next pass.
Wendy took a 1.5hr nap while I zig-zagged along the gravel southern westfjord roads. Construction zones in Iceland leave much to be desired. For 25 minutes, I drove on a rough road while navigating around operating constuction vehicles. A couple sections of the road were boarderline 4x4 quality. Guess they don't expect much traffic in these regions (probably only saw ~12-15 cars myself in 4 hours). We stopped at a hotel/café at the inner end of one fjord, to use the restrooms. They had a lunch buffet, which was tempting, but we planned on eating our food in the car during the drive to save time. However, a frozen "Skyris" treat caught our eye, and we decided to shell out the 200isk to try it. It tasted like a pudding pop, but had 25% skyr. The gas pumps were all in use here, so we continued on the road, planning to stop at the next station for a fill up.
We encountered a construction zone. No one to direct traffic, just drive through, and hope the heavy machines are aware of you. Wendy didn't seem to mind the rough conditions on the road...
A short while later, we encountered a N1 station next to a handicraft shop. I filled up while Wendy shopped inside. The store was loaded with great Icelandic handmade wool and leather items. Wendy bought a wool hat, fashioned like the Icelandic women used to wear in the past.
We are now on Ring Road, Wendy is at the wheel, and is enjoying the view of Icelandic horses along the road. This automatic rental is paying dividends, as I can rest and write this journal while on the go. We're picking up some radio stations to listen too, now that we're approaching more populated regions. Good thing Wendy was driving, as we just passed a cop. In the "wild" westfjords, I generally didn't worry about cops around, and drove what the road would give me.
We passed lots of big white plastic bales of hay on the countryside. "Lot's of hales of bay," Wendy said, before correcting herself. We laughed about that for awhile, since I had almost said the same dyslexic comment myself too.
1:24am, Hof Guesthouse. Another late night… Wendy drove ~3hr, to a town with an information center. Wendy was curious about Icelandic horse shows, but unfortunately the next one was Friday. We looked up lodging in Akereyi, used the available phone, but found out the hostel was booked. We called several places in Myvatn, and they were all booked, but one guy gave us the # of an unlisted place, Hof, which had rooms available. We ended up deciding to stay there, and I verified their location over the phone. At 9800isk, it was the most expensive place we'd be staying at, for a 2 bed sleeping bag accomodation room. But Myvatn is known as a busy/expensive place. Wendy continued driving another half hour, before I took over for the final drive to Akereyi. I continued driving south of Iceland's 2nd largest city, for quite awhile, until I noticed we crossed a 1 lane bridge, and realized we had left the ring road somehow. We discovered that we missed a bridge at the south end of Akereyi a good 20 minutes back. Doh! We doubled back and took a 40 minute hit to our schedule. Always frusterating to lose time like that (which could be for relaxing or sleeping).
We stopped at the waterfall Goddafoss, about halfway from Akereyi to Myvatn. The waterfall is just 1km off the road, and worth a stop to view the gushing falls.
Another view of the falls (and some photographers in the way)...
I made good time on the road, and by 9:10pm we were on the outskirts of Myvatn. We drove south of the lake, and looked for Hof guesthouse near the southeast side, near Hofdi, according to the description I received over the phone. However, we were at a loss to find it, despite scouring the area several times. Eventually we headed north til we reached a nearby town, and asked for directions. Turns out the guesthouse was on the southwest corner of the large lake, so we again doubled back, after a 45 minute delay. It was getting late, and it looked like we wouldn't have time to stop for dinner. We finally arrived at Hof Guesthouse at 10:10pm, and humbly asked if we could use the staff kitchen to heat up some food, since we got lost and couldn't make it to a restaurant. Fortunately, the staff was very compassionate, and opened their doors to us, where we cooked up some dehydrated asparagus soup (good thing we brought extra), and the chicken wings and breaded lamb nuggets that we bought at the store yesterday. This helped salvage a frustrating evening on the road.
We spent the rest of the night researching our plan for Myvatn tomorrow (kind of Yellowstone-ish, with lots of volcano artifacts), and then planned out our night-time destinations for Wed/Thurs/Fri night. We'll call some hostels tomorrow in hopes of reservations. Finding places on the fly worked well the 1st two nights, but tonight was a challenge, so we'll try to get some stuff reserved the rest of the trip.
Another late night. And it's coming off of a long day of driving. Must have put in 500+ tiring miles on the road. Makes me consider staying in one zone for multiple days. Wendy's new hat was the highlight of the day today.