Category: Hiking

Today we have a plan to explore the North Iceland. The first intention was to drive the shortest way by the Ring Road. Luckily we decided to follow the suggestions of the David and drive by the ocean shore to the North. One more sunny day – just a bit of light rain in the evening.

In the morning we explore three lovely coastal towns – Dalvik, Olafsfjordur and Siglufjordur. Dalvik is one of the places for whale watching tours. We skip this for now as we have more than 300km to drive today.

We completely changed our plan for today according to suggestions of David – our host in Selfoss. Instead of lake Myvatn we go to explore Dettifoss waterfall and  Asbyrgi canyon. The weather is still sunny 🙂

Amazingly the weather is still sunny (where are the famous Iceland weather flips?). About 250km to drive today from Djupivogur to the today’s destination Egilsstadir. At the beginning we drive 18km by the ocean shore to Sveinsstekksfoss waterfall on a shore of Berufjorsur fjord. The waterfall is visible from the highway already. We climb to get closer to it and then follow a little bit further for a couple of smaller waterfalls.

Skaftafell national park is located near the ocean at the South-East corner of Vatnajokull – the largest glacier of Europe. The glacier is nearby but we go first to explore the  Svartifoss waterfall that falls down from the wall of basalt columns.

Then we return to the Svartifoss tourist information center and go in the opposite direction to  one of the Vatnajokull tongs (or fingers as they are called by locals). There ar some 2km to go and as we go closer it gets colder. Not possible to approach the glacier itself as it is protected by a small lake. Still the glacier looks huge and gorgeous across the lake as well.

The road to Seljalandsfoss (foss means waterfall in Icelandic) goes by the huge plane that ends at the cliff wall. A powerful stream falls down from the wall – this is Seljalandsfoss. One can look at the waterfall from different sides, including from below as one can squeeze in between the wall and the falling stream.

While admiring the sights we soon get drenched so we move North by the bottom of the wall. In a half km we foind there another waterfall Gljufrabui – smaller but beautiful as the first one..