Day Six - East Iceland and Our First View of Vatnajökull Glacier

Brenda Kerr

Aug 31, 2023 • 4 min read

Lake Lagarfjlót

Before leaving Seyðisfjörður, we had breakfast at the cafe in the Orkan gas station. Gas stations are different in Iceland. The gas pumps are all "pay at the pump" and usually have nothing to do with the business in the building that may or may not be there. In more remote areas there will be a pump and nothing else. This cafe had a French cook. The pancakes and eggs benedict were very good.

After stocking up on food for lunch we started driving. We passed tons of waterfalls. There is a trail that passes 25 of them. Maybe we'll come back and spend more time in one place so we can walk the trail.

Our first stop of the day was Hallormsstaður National Forest. Forest is almost non-existent in Iceland because all the trees were cut down as the island was settled. In 1905 they decided to preserve some land as forest and have worked to increase the number of trees and the amount of land preserved. We visited the arboretum in the forest.

Alaskan lupine was brought to the country as a plant to help control erosion, but it is now a controversial invasive species.

The forest borders Lake Lagarfjlót, which is glacier fed and very cold.

Rachael convinced me that she read that these berries were safe to eat. Haven't died yet!

We headed back to route 95 through Breiðdalur Valley. This involved another drive up and over a mountain. Road construction is interesting here. There aren't enough roads to make a detour so they leave the roads open to traffic. In this case I drove past a grader as it worked in the other lane. No flag person directing traffic or anything like that. Several times we have found ourselves driving on rocks rather than the pebbles you expect on a dirt road. I don't know if they're going to put blacktop over the rocks or just let people keep driving over them as is. It makes a very rough ride. Breiðdalur Valley was amazing. I was driving so I kept telling Rob and Rachael to roll down their windows to get pictures. Hopefully their posts are full of them.

Nykurhylsfoss was the waterfall we were heading to. It's a smaller fall along route 1. Robin and I took a short walk to the head of the falls too.

On the road again we drove around another fjord.

Always on the lookout for birds. These are whooper swans. We saw hundreds of them as we drove along the North Atlantic.

We soon reached the Horns of Iceland. Vestrahorn means West Horn, Eystrahorn means East Horn and Brunnhorn means Well Horn ('Brunnur' means a well, like in a wishing well).

Vestrahorn is on the far left, Brunnhorn is in the middle, and Eystrahorn is on the right.

Our next stop was at Höfn to look for birds and to buy some dinner to eat at the guest house. It's supposed to be a major birding destination. We think we saw some Arctic Terns offshore.

On to Vatnajökull glacier! We started seeing glacier tongues from the road as we approached Jokulsarlon glacier lagoon. The icebergs in the lagoon are amazing and the temperature is probably 10 degrees cooler than just 1km away. We also saw seals swimming around. I know Rob is including a video of a seal.

The lagoon with the glacier sparkling behind it.

A couple more glacier tongues behind the lagoon.

Cross the road to where the lagoon meets the sea and you find Diamond Beach, a black sand beach with sparkling chunks of ice.