Our campground in Seydisfjordur was really crowded when I looked outside in the morning. We don’t know how many people arrived later in the evening after we shut all of our curtains and relaxed in the quiet confines of our camper, but it must have been quite a few.
I woke up around 6:15 AM and headed to the restroom. Unlike most other campgrounds where no one was really awake that early, there were already people in the men’s bathhouse. I guess it might be this way for the remainder of the trip, both the campgrounds and places we visit will be more crowded as we get closer to Reykjavik.
It was cloudy again this morning, and I did not see anything that looked like clear skies anywhere on the horizon, which was a little depressing. It actually started to rain a bit later as I was working on the blog and making coffee while I let Stephanie sleep. We were planning on trying to get an earlier start today, it is a long driving day with several sites to see along the way.
I worked on yesterday’s blog post and was able to complete it, which is a good thing We had just talked yesterday about how some days seem to blend together, and it is hard to remember everything we did just a day or two ago, so it is important to keep it up to date.
We ate a quick breakfast of yogurt, granola bars, and bananas so we did not spend time preparing anything. We were ready to leave at about 8:45 AM, not super early, but better than most other days. We could see that there was a Viking Cruise ship in port here this morning, and tour groups were already in the town, there were two at the nearby church as we pulled out of the campground. These were probably “included” Viking cruise excursions, most of those are walking tours of smaller port towns.
We were planning on stopping at the Gufufoss waterfall, it was where we had briefly stopped yesterday on the way to the campground, but had been too tired to walk to the falls. It was a short walk, and so we thought we would try it today. Stephanie stayed at the camper while I made the short walk to the falls. It was not spectacular, but a nice waterfall. About the time we started to pull out of the parking area, it started raining fairly hard, unfortunately, an all to common site recently.
It rained steadily the whole way to Egilsstaðir, the same town we had gone to the Bonus store at yesterday. The drive was not nearly as scenic today in the rain, and it took much more concentration to drive, it was also more windy, especially in the high mountain passes.
Since we were going near the Bonus Grocery Store on our way through town, we thought we would stop and see if we could get the few items we had not gotten yesterday. We pulled into the parking lot and it was empty. It was a little after 9:30 AM, but according to Google, the store did not open until 11:00 AM, and we thought that was excessively late compared to what we are used to at home, but that did not help our cause. After our short side trip to the closed Bonus, we got back on the road to go to the next stop on our itinerary, the Reyðarfjörður viewpoint. It was over an hour’s drive away from Egilsstaðir.
Reyðarfjörður is a town we passed through just a few kilometers from the actual viewpoint. Stephanie had seen on Google Maps that there is a Catholic Church there as well as the Kollaleira monastery. It was just a couple of blocks off the main road up on a hill and so we headed there to see the church. From some research, we found out that the Church structure was made in Slovakia with local wood, and was brought in parts by ship and built on the site where it is currently located.
It was small, but really nice inside, and had a really nice wood smell since it was made like a log cabin out of large-diameter logs. We prayed for a bit inside and then headed out. There was a bathroom at the entrance to the church, so we took advantage of that.
We only had a short drive to the viewpoint. There was a nice parking area with several trails heading down toward the fjord below. It was on a point of land and there were great views of the fjord and some small towns nearby. Of course, we did not walk on any of the trails other than to get to the main viewing area right near the parking area. It was sort of like a park. Luckily, it had stopped raining some time back and now it was just cloudy, and a little breezy
The drive out to the viewpoint was a few kilometers on an in-and-out route, so we retraced our drive back to the main highway and drove onward. We crossed over the bridge at the end of the Fjord and headed to the other side of the fjord, most of which we had seen from driving along the shoreline to Reyðarfjörður.
We had seen a tunnel from the other side, and now we approached it to pass through the mountain to the other side. The tunnel was six kilometers long, and there was some type of construction going on inside, there were signs and the speed limit was reduced to 30 kph. I did not want to speed, but we did not see any signs of the construction, and there was now a line of cars behind me. The tunnel naturally sloped downward, so even coasting, we were now going closer to the regular speed limit for the tunnel, 70 kph. It was not until we reached the very end that we saw some vehicles with flashing lights in our lane. There was a car approaching from the other side, so we had to stop to let them go by. The construction was actually just two maintenance vehicles and they were changing burnt-out lights in the ceiling of the tunnel. At least this was a two-lane tunnel and we did not have to get over for cars coming the other way.
Soon the road we were driving on was now right on the coast by the sea, and the coastline was pretty spectacular, as well as the mountains just inland. There were many mountains that were just naturally covered with gravel, and it was just different to see that. There were several places where we just stopped off on the side of the road for photos.
The next stop was at the Nykurhylsfoss Waterfall. It was a short drive on a dirt road to the parking area, and then a short walk to the waterfall. It was nice, but since it was still cloudy, and really breezy, we had to bundle up to go there. There was a railing around the gravel viewing area, but we wanted to set up the tripod and take some photos of us with the waterfall, so we set up the tripod in the viewing area and then went through the railing to a small piece of ground outside.
It was obvious that many people had used this same photo position, it was well-worn and not covered with any grass. Stephanie was a little hesitant at first, but she headed out there so I could frame the picture, and then join her for the photos. We were worried the wind might topple the tripod, so we set it up against the railing for support. Everything worked out and we got some good pictures.
We headed back to the camper. There was a port-o-let in the parking area, which was unusual. Earlier, on the way to the falls, we saw a small gate to a trail that went to a couple of other waterfalls, and the owners of the property had posted a sign saying that they did not want anyone to “take a s%#t” or leave toilet paper on the trail. We surmised that they had put the port-o-let there to encourage people to use it instead of the trail for their “duty”
We needed to use it for #1, so Stephanie went first. It was not that pleasant, it was pretty full and obviously was not emptied on a regular basis. Luckily, it is cold, so it did not have a terrible smell. Of course, it had a side urinal, so it was not as bad of an experience for me.
The was a dirt road continued onward from the parking area to a campground that was posted as being 1 Km away. We had seen a car parked up on the road above the parking area when we arrived, so we headed up there to see if we could find a peaceful spot to park to make our lunch. We first found a spot to turn around a little farther up the road and then headed back to another area where we had seen the other car parked and pulled off the side of the dirt road. It was not large enough to turn around in but was large enough so we were not blocking the main road when we parked there. We just did not want to be in a parking lot to eat lunch, especially one with a full port-o-let!
Stephanie made us sandwiches for lunch, and we enjoyed the view from above the fjord that was below. We were there for about 20 minutes and then continued on our journey.
The next stop on our list was Djúpavogskörin – Natural Hot Bath. It had said it was temporarily closed when we had added it to the trip a few weeks back as a place to stop, and unfortunately, it still indicated on Google Maps that it was closed. It was just a small natural pool on the side of the road, and as we passed by, we could still see it was not operational, there was no pool of water at all, something had obviously happened to whatever maintained the pool of water, and it had not been repaired.
The scenery on the drive was spectacular, and we were occasionally getting some breaks in the clouds, mostly off in the distance, but the limited sunshine was making some of the views more spectacular, adding a lot of colors. We stopped a lot at designated areas, and also at some small gravel strips just big enough for the camper to try and get photos where the colors were not so subdued by all the cloudy weather.
We stopped next at another waterfall called Barkináfoss. It was just off the road in a designated picnic area and only a short walk to get to. In case no one has figured it out, there are a LOT of waterfalls in Iceland, almost as many as there are sheep that we constantly see on the side of the roads in the grasslands, and occasionally have to stop for because they are in the road.
We looked up some information about all of the sheep, and we may have already posted this, but almost all of the sheep here are raised for eating, not for wool, so they have not been sheared at all, and look pretty “wooly”. They have long wool on their sides that almost looks like dreadlocks. Most of them are not very old, they butcher them starting at about 5 months to sell as amb meat. Of course, some are older for breeding. All of them are tagged, and in September, there are large round-ups to gather the sheep for sorting by the owner and for their future purpose, meat or breeding. We had to stop several times today for sheep in the road, and of course, that becomes a photo-op for Stephanie from the camper window.
We passed by an area along the coast that was relatively protected and there were hundreds of white geese swimming along the shoreline. We stopped at one point to try and get some photos, but could not easily get to the water, so we just got a few photos from afar.
We next stopped at a beach parking area and took some photos of the coastline. We were actually getting more sunshine by this time, and we were hoping for good weather for the next couple of days after all of the cloudy, rainy weather we had recently. As we were getting into the camper, a man came up to my window.
I was in the process of trying to start the camper, and for some reason, the window would not roll down until it started, but I finally got it to come down. He said that he had noticed Stephanie’s USC Gamecocks flag on the car, and said he had gone to USC-Myrtle Beach as a soccer player, and he had recognized the flag and wanted to come over to chat. He was with his son and friend, they all lived in Reykjavik and had been hunting reindeer for the past three days and were heading back home. He had played soccer from 1986-1990. We all chatted for a few minutes, and I took their picture next to the Carolina Flag on the back of our camper.
The next stop was my favorite for the entire day…..Not. There was a “red chair” that is mounted on top of a small rock formation on the side of the road, and Stephanie found it while looking at different places to stop on our route. We pulled on and waited for some other people to finish their photo session in the wooden red chair on top of the rock. Then I took photos of Stephanie in the chair, and then she wasted us in a selfie, but of course, with both of us sitting in the chair, you could not even see it. I wonder who is laughing at all of the people who stop here just because someone mounted a red wooden chair on top of a rock……gullible tourists were we.
The next stop was actually our campground for the night, except we forgot it was where we were staying. Originally, we were staying at a campground in the town of Hjof, which was a bit farther down the road. Last night, we discussed staying at another campground on the tip of a peninsula called the Vesturhorn Campground. There was also a mock Viking Village there from a movie set, and a black sand beach. It was also a place we had marked to stop at for the scenic views of the surrounding mountains and the black sand beach. However, we did not update our Google Maps, and never modified them to show us stopping there for today, we still had the Hofn campground as the final destination.
There was a significant fee to go to the other place if you were not camping, and when we turned off and the road turned to dirt for the 4 Km drive there, we changed our minds. I thought there was something familiar sounding about the Viking Village, but it did not ring the correct bell in my mind. We continued on to the turnoff for Hofn. We had seen several glaciers in the distance and wanted to try and get a photo of them, so instead of turning left to Hofn, we turned right to try and find a spot for the glacier photos. We drove a few kilometers and then found a decent spot for photos.
We headed back in the other direction and stopped at an N1 for fuel. That was when we figured out we were near Hofn, and realized we had decided not to camp there. We also realized we were supposed to have gone to the area with the Viking Village that was also part of the campground property, so we headed back there after having taken about a 20 Km detour.
We arrived at the campground, which had been described as a “parking lot” in some of the reviews, and it was exactly that. There were spaces with electricity at the end of a gravel area which was also used as the parking lot for visitors there to see some of the sights. There was a gate and fee for driving out to the Viking Village and Black Sand Beach. There was also a fee for walking, but it was less. However, if you camped there, the driving out to visit those sites was free.
We initially parked on an elevated area that was away from the general campground/parking lot for the cafe and ticket sales. There was an electrical outlet box up there and we parked and made sure the electricity worked before heading to the cafe to check-in. We passed what we thought was a bathhouse close to where we had parked, but it was only a dishwashing area and a small covered cooking area with two hot plates. The bathrooms and showers were in the main building, much farther away from where we were parked. We decided to move next to another camper that was already parked in what we described as the “parking lot” and they were right next to another set of electric hook-ups.
The views were not as good in the lower area, but it was much closer to the bathhouse.
Stephanie went in and paid for the stay here, and received a ticket for going out through the gate to the sites on the peninsula point. We decided we would go ahead and visit there before we parked for the night since the weather was improving. We hoped that our preferred second-choice camping spot was still available when we came back
We were not sure how far out we could go. On the end was an old NATO Radar Site, and it was still fenced off, but there were at least two other places to stop on the way out to the radar site.
We skipped by the first stop which was for the simulated Viking Village, supposedly built for a movie, we will have to research what movie it was constructed for. It was quite a long walk from the parking area to the actual village, and we did not want to spend that much time or effort on walking. We headed farther out and stopped at a black sand beach which was really beautiful and interesting. The sand was pitch black and really fine-grained. There was no other color in the sand, it was perfectly black. There were sea oats growing in many areas making natural sand dunes. We took a lot of photos and set up the tripod for photos of us together.
We rode farther out on the peninsula, as far as the gate to the radar site, and parked with the other cars there. Then we walked to the rocky shoreline about a kilometer away for more photos. The shoreline was about 25 feet above the water, and the waves were crashing against the rocks. There were other areas to walk to but we were tired and headed back to the camper and then to the campground to pick out our campsite.
We ended up still being able to park next to the other camper so we could be close enough to access the electricity with our relatively short power cord. It was not quite as good a view as the upper area but more protected from the wind and much closer to the bathhouse. We backed our camper in while trying to get as far away from the other camper as we could while still having enough electric cord to reach the box.
We had to run our electric cord under the end of their camper for it to be long enough to reach the front of our camper. We backed in so we could be protected from the wind on the side door side of our camper, and then set up our chairs and table to enjoy the now partly sunny skies and calmer winds.
We had one glass of wine and thought it would be a good idea to go ahead and get showers before the campsite got crowded. There were a lot of people here to visit the peninsula, and that was kind of annoying because of all of the traffic in the parking lot/campground next to us. Plus, they were also using the same bathrooms as the campers.
In fact, we had to wait until after 6:00 PM for them to unlock the shower doors. There was a sigh saying that the showers were only open from 6:00 PM until midnight. I guess that keeps transient people from coming in and using the showers, never intending to pay to stay here, It would be nice if they had separate bathrooms for campers with a code so we did not have to suffer from the ills caused by the people just here to visit.
At least we were early to the showers once they opened since we were early into the campground. We would say that the peak time for people to arrive at many of these campgrounds has been between 7:00 PM and 8:30 PM. We did not want our days to be that long which is why we set aside as many days as we had for this trip, a little longer than people typically stay.
After our showers, we enjoyed the now sunny skies sitting on our chairs and having a glass of wine. It was still about 90 minutes until sunset. We had already prepped everything for our dinner, and we were having grilled hamburgers. We had bought two pre-made patties from the Bonus Grocery and this was a great night to cook them, it was sunny and not too windy.
We started the grill and also had the baked beans going on our camper stove that we were having with the burgers. The Weber tabletop grill is a little finicky, it is a single burner and does not get that hot. I let the grill get up to temperature, which was much lower than a normal gas grill. We put on the burgers and started to cook them and they were really smoking a lot, probably because they were a little fatty. The burgers here are all one grade of ground beef, and we did not know the fat content. the only thing that changes between the three burger selections we say was the weight of the patties.
I cooked them for a while fighting the swirling wind. I did not want to smell like a greasy burger after already having taken my shower. The wind completely changed directions in the short time I was cooking, I kept dancing around the table trying to avoid the smoke. I cooked them for what I thought was the right amount of time, but they were flaring up and I could not tell for sure. I put the cheese on to melt and then took them off the grill and covered them with foil, hoping they were cooked enough.
The burgers rested and we finished heating the beans, and then made our burgers. They were a little plain, we had no lettuce, tomato, pickle onions, or mustard, only the cheese and ketchup, and the Icelandic mustard. The burgers tasted good but seemed a little red in the middle. I thought about it and realized that they probably had preservatives added to them since they were vacuum-packed, and no matter how long they are cooked, they will still look red in the middle. They tasted great, so we decided the preservatives were making them look rare inside, or at least that was what we wanted to believe. They did not have any red juice coming from them after cooking and resting, so that was another good sign they were really done no matter what they looked like.
We went to the small building we initially thought was restrooms to wash the dishes and all they had out there was cold water, but that would have to suffice.
After dinner, we enjoyed the sunset, and I decided to fly the drone. I could not get high enough over the mountain next to the campground to get a view of the setting sun and did not want to fly it too far away from us over other people. Basically I went straight up to 320 meters and back down after making some videos and taking pictures up at the higher altitude.
The campground was getting crowded, and there were still people coming in to go to the Viking Village and black sand beach areas, even though it was almost dark. People seem to make much longer days touring than we do, but that was fine, we did not want to be on the go for over 12 hours every day, it is exhausting doing our shorter schedule much less that much longer.
We packed away the table, chairs, and grill, and then headed inside to relax, it was getting too cold outside. We did not stay up much longer, we have a full day tomorrow and are looking forward to the better weather we had this afternoon.
We headed to bed at about 10:30 PM.
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