We felt really refreshed waking up this morning, even though the extremely high wind gusts were blowing our campervan from side to side all darn night…but I guess it just rocked us right to sleep.
Our first stop today brought us to the east coast of Iceland (technically northeast). We planned on doing a little back and forth driving, as Egilsstaðir is kind of a central point for our places to see today. The first stop of the day was at Borgarfjarðarhöfn (directly north of Egilsstaðir). If youre looking at a map, or familiar with Iceland, this may seem out of the way to some, but rumor had it that this is an infamous puffin area, so we had to go see some puffins right?! The drive itself takes about an hour each way, so it’s not a short detour by any means, but if you’ve never seen these magnificent animals, going up and down a mountainside on a gravel road is definitely worth it. The drive to the puffin platform was well worth it. The sheer number and proximity is unimaginable!
After getting back to the central point of Egilsstaðir, we then we drove about 20 minutes (each way) to a little mountain town called Seydisfjordur (directly east of Egilsstaðir). A major reason we came to this town was really to see the very popular rainbow road that leads towards a beautiful church. We also stopped and had a lovely lunch of local fish (arctic char and cod) and bread at Nordic Restaurant (yes, this is the actual name).
Even if you’re not really into sights like the rainbow road, the ~45 minute roundtrip drive itself was well worth it, as you wind up and down the face of a huge mountain with amazing views all around…including a few of the powerful Gufafoss waterfall and Heiðarvatn, which is an stunning glacial lake. The elevation along this drive put us up close and personal with some amazing natural beauty. Keep in mind, where there are glaciers, there are most likely plenty of fosses!!
We decided not to do one of the longer-distance hikes we originally planned for (Hengifoss), so this gave us the opportunity to continue on along the Ring Road, and actually put us ahead of our itinerary. We stopped along the road to see a beautiful orange lighthouse between the towns of Fáskrúðsfjörður and Stöðvarfjörður. The pull off to the lighthouse is very rocky, so if you are not driving a 4×4 car, then plan to park closer to the road and take a short hike to the lighthouse.
After a quick stop at the lighthouse, our next adventure was to find a secret hot pot just past the town of Djúpivogur.
The remaining portion of the east coast Icelandic Ring Road hugs the coast and brings you along each jutting peninsula. This provides amazing panoramic views of the mountainsides and Norwegian Sea, and at some points brought us up into the clouds…literally!
As we got closer to our nightly destination of Höfn, we saw a random red chair off the Ring Road perched upon a rock, so we obviously had to stop and take a few pictures. It’s really amazing how such a mundane object in such an unexpected location can bring so much joy and curiosity to the human mind.
After posing on our throne, we continued on to Höfn, where we parked our camper for the night. Tomorrow we have an action-packed and nature-filled adventure along the southeast coast of Iceland, so make sure to stay posted!