Good morning Day 4, kinda… We were greeted with fog, and lots of it for our next section in Iceland. It really felt like we had been transported to the East Coast of Newfoundland, not the East Coast of Iceland. The plan for today was to drive the East Coast and head inland a bit to the North Coast. Breakfast was the usual oatmeal, then we opened the map to check out any symbols that might be points of interest, and hit the road.
If you haven’t read the Golden Circle (day 1), or the South Coast (Day 2&3), click on the words and follow the link.
It was during this morning’s drive that Dan had mentioned about these crazy big cliffs that went straight down to the ocean on one side of the road, then straight up on the other to a mountain. With so much fog we saw nothing, until there was a small break where I caught a glimpse of the ocean below. We found a parking spot and got out to check out how much we could see. It was enough that we played a game of “can you imagine the scenery?”. We were picturing the cliffs and just hoping the weather would ease up a bit. Kind of like it does in Newfoundland where it can be foggy in the morning and sun splitting the rocks in the afternoon. With no real guess as to if this would happen we pushed on driving in and out of the eastern fjords.
At another random pit stop, we found a second black beach with one big sea stack and crazy ocean waves crashing on the beach. This beach was actually used for some of the Game of Thrones scenes. We didn’t know about this until near the end of our trip after doing a quick Google search for movies and shows filmed in Iceland. Oh well, we can go back and imagine it through the photos. After stopping here for a while to walk around and watch the waves we continued onward. It wasn’t until we rounded the fjord that we could look back and see the dark black mountains pushing up through the fog and clouds. Too bad it wouldn’t clear up for us and we just had to keep on going. (Another time! LOL)
Our next stops were more waterfalls near Egilsstaðir and Seyðisfjörður where we visited three different sets of falls. The weather was finally clearing up, making the views at the falls easier to enjoy.
This land is just littered with waterfalls it was hard to imagine we would see more. Just as luck would have it though, we headed to our final stop for the day at Dettifoss. This fall has the highest volume of water in Europe rushing over its edge, making it the largest waterfall in Iceland. WOW. It was impressive! These falls can be accessed on both sides, which we didn’t realize until we arrived, but as luck would have it (those stones were paying off) we were on the side where we could walk right up to the waters edge. Ya, that’s a bit crazy with the sheer volume of water rushing by our feet, but totally worth it! I was in awe sitting on the edge and watching the water flow. I even had the chance to wave to people on the other side and wait for a wave back (eventually there was a family that noticed and waved).
We were both finally done for the day. We had covered a LOT of kilometers making this our biggest driving day. I was glad when we arrived at our campground next to the Asbergi cliffs.
Our next adventure was driving along the North Coast. Be sure to come back and read about it.