Friday, July 11, 2008

Part VII - The East Fjords






The Ring road between Jokulsarlon and Hofn on a sunny day is one of the most scenic roads I've ever done. It was hard not to stop every 5 minutes ...

The drive that day was going to be a long one. We needed to get from Hofn to Husavik, located in the north of Iceland, and a total distance of about 400 km. It might not sound like much, but in Iceland it is. The speed limit is 90 km/hour on a paved road, and 80 km/hour on a gravel road, but depending on the road conditions we found out that in some parts we couldn't go faster than 30 or 40, for example.



So that meant that we would be crossing most of the East fjords that day. We didn't have any plans for specific stops along the way, except for lunch in Seydisfjordur later on, but found ourselves stopping quite a few times to enjoy the views anyway.






Wild reindeer in the Eastern Fjords















SEYDISFJORDUR

From the Ring road we took a detour to Egilstaddir, and then the mountain road up to Seydisfjordur, a charming little town with quaint wooden houses (I read that some had been brought from Norway) and one of the main ferry destinations from Denmark.

It started snowing briefly when we were at the highest level, but it cleared when we reached the waterfalls before arriving into town. Our plan had been to have lunch here, but we had forgotten that the 17th was Iceland's National Day. And of course, all the restaurants were closed ... The gas station was our rescue place, not much more than burgers and fries, but they never tasted better :)













Itinerary:
Ring road from Hofn, then detour on 939 to Egilstaddir
From Egilstaddir, road 93 to Seydisfjordur and back

More photos at Flickr here

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have been looking at your photos everyday of your travels and am just amazed at this world we live in. It's so beautiful!

Unknown said...

waww it is fantastic

GM said...

lovely trip :)

Anonymous said...

wonderful photos! I went in Iceland and it's so incredible! You show it!