I know, I know … every night we write our post and talk about the intense beauty of Iceland. We talk about its vastness, its uniqueness, the expected unbelievable surprise that’s certain to lie around the next bend. Every day we seem to be floored by the beauty – and today would prove to be no different. Today we basically drove through the set for “Return of the King”.
We started off the day leaving our room in Lake Myvatn (which overlooked the Lake and came with our own herd of Icelandic horses) early in the morning, as we had a long day’s trip ahead of us getting to Hofn, a small fishing village in the southeast corner of Iceland. Our first stop, however, was just 5km out of Lake Myvatn at Hevrir, a geothermal field of boiling mud pits, steam vents, sulfur deposits and fumaroles. The liquid exceeds 200 degrees, and is not only rank with the smell of sulfur but actually has sulfuric acid in contents. We were told the best time to visit Hevrir was the morning – and I think that’s because the wind is usually blowing north, which means the smell drifting away from you. Much appreciated at 8:30am.
We continued driving for the next 200km through an empty lunar landscape. Seriously, envision the moon, and that’s what we were driving through – black, basalt, barren land. After a few hours, we moved from the moon to a lush mountain valley; from a lush mountain valley to the rugged, untamed beach; and finally to end at the Vatnajkull glacier. It was a great scenic tour, and it made me very glad that we decided to drive the Ring Road from north to south. I feel like these last few stops are the perfect end to our road trip.
Tomorrow we’ll leave Hofn and it’ll be all glaciers all day. We’re hitting up the Stafakell National Park, the largest national park in Europe, visiting Jokulsarlon along the way (a bay full of icebergs), as we move ahead to another small village, Vik. Vik will be our last stop on this wonderful road trip, as we’ll head home to Reykjavik the following day.
Until then …
We started off the day leaving our room in Lake Myvatn (which overlooked the Lake and came with our own herd of Icelandic horses) early in the morning, as we had a long day’s trip ahead of us getting to Hofn, a small fishing village in the southeast corner of Iceland. Our first stop, however, was just 5km out of Lake Myvatn at Hevrir, a geothermal field of boiling mud pits, steam vents, sulfur deposits and fumaroles. The liquid exceeds 200 degrees, and is not only rank with the smell of sulfur but actually has sulfuric acid in contents. We were told the best time to visit Hevrir was the morning – and I think that’s because the wind is usually blowing north, which means the smell drifting away from you. Much appreciated at 8:30am.
We continued driving for the next 200km through an empty lunar landscape. Seriously, envision the moon, and that’s what we were driving through – black, basalt, barren land. After a few hours, we moved from the moon to a lush mountain valley; from a lush mountain valley to the rugged, untamed beach; and finally to end at the Vatnajkull glacier. It was a great scenic tour, and it made me very glad that we decided to drive the Ring Road from north to south. I feel like these last few stops are the perfect end to our road trip.
Tomorrow we’ll leave Hofn and it’ll be all glaciers all day. We’re hitting up the Stafakell National Park, the largest national park in Europe, visiting Jokulsarlon along the way (a bay full of icebergs), as we move ahead to another small village, Vik. Vik will be our last stop on this wonderful road trip, as we’ll head home to Reykjavik the following day.
Until then …
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