Wendy stands on our cabin from last night. The kitchen facilities was like walking into a museum recreation of a viking building...
10:50pm, Hrollaugsstadir…
I woke up at 3:30am, extremely warm, so I hopped down from the top bunk and turned off the space heater. It was already fully bright outside, but I returned to bed for another 5 hrs of sleep. At 8:30am, I could hear movement by our neighbors through the thin wall, and got up to use the restroom. Plenty of clouds outside, but also some sun. When Wendy woke at 8:45am, we walked to the café to check out their breakfast. It was the same bread, deli slices, cheese, and cereal breakfast that every place has. We passed. Wendy cooked up some flax meal cereal, while I worked on removing the tire. I had tried last night to jack the car up, but the car kept shifting on the soft ground. I eventually figured out I needed to stick rocks in front of the 3 other wheels for the car to stay put while being lifted. With step A complete, I tried using the wrench to unscrew the nuts, but I couldn't get any rotation with the small "X" shaped wrench, even with Wendy standing on one side, and me lifting on the other. I asked the guesthouse attendance if they had a larger wrench, and sure enough, they provided one, which enabled me to put on the full-size spare. When I returned it, I borrowed their phone to call the rental company, who said I could take it to any N1 gas station for repair, and they'd cover the charge. Good news!
Wendy stands on our cabin from last night. The kitchen facilities was like walking into a museum recreation of a viking building...
I peaked in the window of the small church across the church...
Despite the tire change, we still managed to hit the road at 10:10am, amidst a swarm of bus passengers who were visitng the site as part of a rest-stop. We took some final pics of the place, and conitinued on the gravel road to Eggistadir. I drove a little slower, not wanting another flat without a spare. About 90 minutes later, we reached the small city (largest on the east side of Iceland), and was directed by an N1 attendent to get the tire checked out at a tire shop up the road. The tire guys were quick to find the leak and in 30 minutes I was back on the road with the tire replaced. I donated a 1lb bag of Twizzlers to the repair guy in gratitude for the job well done.
It was 12:40pm, and we were back in business. It was fortunate we stayed at the farmhouse last night (short drive, had the tool). After a stop at Bonus, where we bought more apples, and a raspberry skyrcake, we took a side trip to Seydisfjordur, which was billed as the must-see Eastfjord town in Lonely Planet (if you only see one town). The 25km drive from Eggistad was stunning, with tons of waterfalls. The town was cute, and we stopped by several craft stores in town.
We stopped to check out a cafe in town...
A look across the water at the rest of town...
This scenic town even had it's own dramatic waterfall tumbling in down the towering mountainside...
We checked out the church (pictured above), which had a cool balcony. Another look across town shows more tumbling water...
Wendy read about a rock shop, Petru, in Stodvarfjordur, and recommended we take a small detour from the ring road to visit it. Sounded like a good plan, since we had the time. We visited a flea market, where Wendy almost bought a sweater (color didn't work). Just a minute further into the small town, we reach the active Petru exhibit. This rock collector's house was chock full of stunning colorful rocks, almost entirely found in Iceland. The driveway was lined with rocks, and a colorful array of flowers intertwined with the rock garden. Inside her house, the walls were packed floor to ceiling with more beautiful rocks. It was like walking through a kalidascope, where all you can do is let the rainbow of colors flow around you, cause you'd need a lifetime to analyze each individual shape and hue.
Fog was collecting on outskirts of the fjords...
We visited the Petru rock museum...
The rock and flower garden was surpringly impressive...
South of Stodvarfjordur, we entered a fog bank, which signalled the start of the cloud domination, lasting the rest of the day. We drove along beaches, and green towering mountains with jagged black rocks, but could barely see any of it. It reminded me a lot of Scotland, particularly the coastline of Skye. At Breiddalsvik, we stopped at a restaurant for some lamb stew and lamb chops to share. Delicious! The town was totally fogged over as we headed south towards our next guest house.
Instead of glaciar views of Iceland's tallest peak (and massive 6000' volcano), our views were clipped at ~400-500'. Enough to see pieces of the low hanging glaciers as we drove by. We passed a lagoon that had several hundred swans in it.
Just before 9pm, we reached our guesthouse, and cooked dinner (2nd dinner?). Wendy had some fishcakes with salad. I tried some lamb-nuggets (bought at Bonus today), but these ended up being lamb hotdogs in breading. I cut them up into a spinach salad, and they were ok. Some cereal for dessert. Very busy kitchen. Made some PBJs for tomorrow's hike.
We ate dinner in the large dining room, next to a party of 12+. When we got to our room, I said, "I call the bed on the left!"...
Weather forecast is aweful for tomorrow. Tons of clouds, probably rain. The big hike I had planned for this road trip is tomorrow, but that looks all but washed out, since there won't be anything to view. The weather hasn't been very good to us this trip. Heavy clouds have swamped us on 4 of the 6 hiking days (including the trek), as well as some of the scenic drives. May have to focus on more town stuff and waterfalls.
Still not totally dark out, at 12:35am. 7:45am wake-up call tomorrow.