We had a quick walk around the seashore of Hofn. As a kind of gimmick, they had info boards with small scale stainless steel dots representing the planets perched on top; the distances between the planets are also to scale. Many of the planets were missing from their places, no doubt taken home by boorish tourists.
This was primarily a driving day. We took the more scenic Ring Road (route 1) that goes in and out of all the inlets going along the east coast of the country (a region appropriately called the East Fjords) to avoid the gravel "direct" route. We stopped first at the Stokknes peninsula, which housed a very touristy cafe and charged you to drive down onto the peninsula to take a picture of a famous rock/mountain called Vestrahorn. It also contains a dilapitated Viking village movie set. We were a bit put off by the vibe there and it was very foggy anyway, so instead of paying the fee to drive down the road, continued on our journey.
Our next stop was the Lonsvik Bay lighthouse. It's a modern lighthouse, like all of the ones we saw in Iceland, and not particularly attractive, but it had a nice shoreline. Nearby, you could walk down on very soft/loose gravel to a small inlet that was a haven for swans. We stayed quite a while walking around and taking pictures. (Nancy had another panic when I disappeared behind the lighthouse to walk the rocky shore).
One more stop towards Laekjavik to see some basalt columns and a black sand beach:
Continuing on, we spotted a waterfall on the side of the road and decided to stop. It turned out to be Nykurhylsfoss and another waterfall, which was not on our itinerary but made for a nice break.
My plan had us going to the main "capital" of the East Fjords, Egilsstaðir, dropping off our stuff at the place we were staying, and then doing a couple small trips from there. This was mainly to avoid gravel roads, which I wasn't sure about since our car was quite low-clearance and not equipped for bad roads. I was driving and Nancy was navigating, and she found that we could get to one of our stops quicker without this out-and-back detour. I forgot that I had specifically planned it the way I did to avoid gravel, so we went on our merry way to see Hengifoss down a gravel road. However, this turned out to probably be the most maintained of the gravel roads we drove down and I had no trouble doing near the speed limit (80 km/h) on most of it as there were no sharp rocks and the roadbed was just hard dirt.
On the way we made another photo stop to get a view of Lagarfljot, a long, narrow glacial lake. a Loch Ness-esque lake monster, the Lagarfljot Worm. There was a brief storyboard with the history of various sitings over the years. Sitings have lately been attributed to rotting moss and logs floating in the lake.
Hengifoss's claim to fame is being the third-highest waterfall in Iceland. We also found significant quantities of trees here for one of the first times on the trip, since the early settlers burned them all down. Many of these forests are planted, mostly to prevent soil erosion, which is an issue due to the volcanic rock that the island sits on. Unfortunately you could not get that close to Hengifoss as they are worried about tourists getting into trouble, so that knocked it down a little in my estimation compared to other falls in Iceland. Probably better, in my opinion, then the headline waterfall was a smaller one on the way called Litlanesfoss, which was surrounded by basalt columns. Hengifoss itself comes down from a colourful red, striated cliff. The hike along the way is nice as well, with good views of the lake.
On my program originally but cut due to lack of time was a visit to Iceland's largest hydro power station. I got rid of it because it would have been a long detour from Egilsstaðir, where we were staying. With our gravel direct route, though, I realized only after it would have been only a half-hour further drive, on a paved road, to see the plant from Hengifoss! A bit disappointed by this missed opportunity - as you can see from the photos, we had excellent weather this today and you have to take advantage of the blue days when you get them here.
We dropped off our stuff at our guesthouse, which was right in town. We had our own room but there were shared bathrooms (individual bathrooms but shared between guests), which was fine. It was just off route 1 so very easy to get to. Trying to squeeze what we could out of the good weather, we headed out east to the small coastal town of Seyðisfjörður. It was only about 27 km away and I needed a break after a lot of driving, so Nancy took the wheel for only the second time this trip. What wasn't evident from the map is that Seyðisfjörður is located on the other side of a mountain pass, which meant going straight up and around steep switchbacks with dropoffs on both sides (guardrails must have been out of budget). As well, there was a fog/driving up into a cloud issue to deal with that limited visibility, so it was white-knuckle the whole way. One we made it safely over the pass and down into the valley, we stopped at a waterfall located just outside the town, Gugufoss. It was just a short walk to the falls and you could get as close as you wanted.
After all of that we had to spend some time in the town, so we walked around a small pond around the "downtown" (the town is very small). They have a famous church with a rainbow street there, and the town was surrounded by mountains on all sides, so it was a nice visit.
After walking around the lake, we headed back (me driving again). Food options were limited due to the late hour so we went to the gas station diner, which again surprised to the upside in terms of quality. It was styled as a American mid-century soda counter (think Pop's Chock'lit Shoppe). Unfortunately while the decor and music were 1955 Riverdale, the prices were decidedly 2026 Egilsstaðir; nonetheless, the food was quite good and had free pop refills (a rarity). After gassing up and eating, we drove across the street to the guesthouse, where we occupied the corner room. Nancy did a walk around town and bought razors for me while I relaxed and caught up on my trip documenting.
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