This portion of the trip started out with some backtracking, and a short travel day. We left Modrudalur Fjalladyrd, and headed towards the coast. One good aspect of backtracking, is that you look at sights from a different direction, a different perspective, so it really wasn’t all bad. We spent the next night in the campground at Reydarfjordur.
The next day we headed south along the coast. We stopped at an interesting display of giant eggs. At Eggin i Gledivik they have 34 giant eggs, each one representing a local bird.
The days on the east coast of Iceland were all cold and overcast, but we still enjoyed the scenery. When you are traveling in your own vehicle, you can stop whenever you like for snacks, or to take photos. One hint, watch for other vehicles that are stopped, because there might be a good view.
Remember that we had bought a camping card at the beginning of our Iceland trip? It allowed us to stay in all of their campgrounds for about $3.33 per night. The camping card company doesn’t have any campsites in the southeast part of the island, so when we rolled into Hofn we had to pay FULL PRICE at the campground, about $27.00! Okay, it is still less expensive than staying at a hotel. The least expensive hotel would have been $127.00, for a basic room with a shared bathroom down the hall, so we saved $100.00, yea!!
In this part of Iceland, the big attraction are the glaciers, and we did start seeing glaciers in the distance as soon as we left Hofn. We were also fortunate enough to see a few reindeer.
Then we arrived at the Jokulsarlon Glacier Lagoon, and Diamond Beach. Let’s get serious here. Iceland has a lot to offer, but this was extra, extra special. We started with the glacier lagoon. All the different shapes of the glaciers, the colors, some had birds on them, seals were even swimming and playing in the water, it was just very magical. It also changes! As the tide goes out, the glaciers move towards the outlet to the sea. As the tide comes back in, the glaciers move back into the lagoon.
When walking towards the bridge we had to be careful. There is a nesting area for the bird called the Arctic Stern. The Arctic Stern is very protective of it’s nesting area, and it may decide to dive out of the sky towards your head. Then we headed over to Diamond Beach. We started on the south side of the bridge, and we found the diamonds. On a black sand beach there were pieces of clear ice, many the size of a soccer ball or larger.
We headed over to the north side of the bridge. On that beach there were larger pieces of ice.
Something amazing about the “ice diamonds” was that they looked completely different from front, back, side etc.
We also visited the Fjallsarlon Lagoon to see more icebergs. There were many fewer people there, but we still enjoyed the Jokulsarlon Lagoon more.
Now, where to camp? There were no campgrounds nearby, and the rules in Iceland say that you must camp only in campgrounds. The rules didn’t say anything about taking a “nap” in your vehicle. We parked on the beach with at least two dozen other vehicles, whose occupants must have been taking “naps” also. Every two hours we would wake up, and drive over to the lagoon. This being June, it was light 24 hours a day. It really wasn’t a surprise to see people out walking on the beach at 2AM. It was a wonderful night on the beach!
With only a few days left in our trip, you could definitely tell we were getting closer to Reykjavik, because of the increase in traffic. Along the highway we came across a sign for Svinafellsjokull, a glacier. We decided to drive in on the very rough gravel road. We’re not sure we would recommend it because of the condition of the road. We didn’t stay long.
Next, we stopped at Fjaorargljufur, the Katla Geopark. This, we would recommend. It is a small canyon with a stream at the bottom. They have a well maintained trail that follows one side of the canyon, with several look-out points. It is well worth the walk.
We camped that night at the campground in Vik. By far this was the busiest campground that we had visited. We paid to use the washer and dryer to have clean clothes for the last couple of days. They did have a good size dining room, but it would become very busy during peak times.
The next day, we stopped at the Seljalandsfoss Waterfall. There were LOTS of people, and you have to pay for parking before you take the short walk to the waterfall. BUT, how many times in life do you get to walk BEHIND a waterfall? So we put on our rain gear and went to stand in the line headed to the back of the falls. You are supposed to enter on the right side of the falls, and exit on the left. Getting behind the falls is easy, but to exit on the left requires a little climbing, and can be difficult for some people, especially if you have short legs. But it was worth it!
Driving down the highway we saw a sign for the Urridafoss Waterfall. We made a u-turn, went back, and were not disappointed. The Urridafoss has more water going over the falls than any other waterfall in Iceland, and to our amazement, there wasn’t hardly anyone there!
For our final night of camping, we decided on Sandgerdi after visiting several other campgrounds. We wanted to be close to Reykjavik to drop off the camper the next morning. If you are starting your trip in this direction, it is a clean little campground, and it has a table where campers leave free leftover supplies.
On our last day with the camper we drove into downtown Reykjavik to drop off everything at our hotel. We decided to stay at one of the least expensive hotels in the city center, the Icelandair Hotel, and it only cost us $224 without breakfast. We then returned our camper to Go Campers, and they dropped us off at a nearby bus stop to get back into the city. It was easy. We got off the bus at the Tjornin Pond, and walked into the city center. It felt good to walk after spending all that time riding in the camper. We visited the Hallgrimskirkja Cathedral, and just wandered the streets. After lunch, we returned to the hotel for a break. In the evening we walked to the Ingolfur Square. We had hot dogs for dinner while we watched a World Cup soccer game with the locals on the big screen in the square. We ended our evening with a licorice ice cream cone from Valdis. The Icelanders do love their licorice.
The next morning it was time to head home. For convenience, we decided to have breakfast at the hotel. There was a little misunderstanding on our part about the price of breakfast. While we thought the buffet was going to be $33.00 for both of us, it ended up being $56.00. That became our most expensive meal in Iceland. To return to the airport, Tam had made reservations to be picked up at the hotel, taken to the main bus terminal, and then travel by FlyBus to the airport. We started talking to a couple at the airport who had traveled about the same amount of days in Iceland. They stayed in hotels, but brought freeze-dried food like us, because they had wanted to avoid restaurant prices. They figured that their trip had cost between $10,000 and $12,000. The way we traveled, we spent about $5,500 dollars, including airfare, transportation, fuel, food and lodging. It was a good trip, and we look forward to returning to Iceland.
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“Once a year, go somewhere you have never been before” -Dalai Lama