Twenty Days in Iceland, A Photo Travelogue

Day 15-17: Egilsstadir, Vopnafjordur

We flew east from Reykjavik to Eastern Iceland's main city, Egilsstadir. After assuring Barb that he could understand the thick Icelandic accent of the announcer at the airport, it was only the quick thinking of the gate attendant that prevented us from getting on the wrong flight - one headed in the exact opposite direction.

We picked up our rental car (a Skoda wagon, our "Skodillac") and drove around Lagarfljot, a long thin lake. Our first stop was in Iceland's national forest at Hallormsstadur. This is where Icelanders go when they get a hankering to be in a forest. Most of the trees in this forest were planted around 1900, and haven't grown very tall, what with the very short growing season. An aside: Iceland has recently started an aggressive reforestation program in the rest of the country. Which reminds us of a joke: what do you do when you get lost in an Icelandic forest? Answer: stand up! Here's another... Did you know that there's a beautiful woman behind every tree in Iceland.

Our next stop was a hardy hike up to Hengifoss. There's actually a lower and and an upper set of falls. The upper falls are Iceland's 3rd tallest, while the lower ones are much more attractive with those nice basaltic columns.

We had perhaps the strangest lunch of the entire trip in Egilsstadir: a crepe filled with ham lunchmeat, white rice and lots of mayonnaise - yikes! That is what you get from ordering without asking for a translation.

The drive from Egilsstadir to the next fjord north, Vopnafjordur, was the highlight of the day: the road climbed from sea level to almost 2500' in just a few miles, and then back down again to sea level just as steeply. The views at the top of both sides were outstanding.

We took several hikes during our stay here. While they didn't have quite the spectacular scenery or geologic features of the hikes on our tour, we enjoyed each of them. Especially our hike up a river gorge during which we encountered a beautiful gyrfalcon. The falcon screeched and squawked at us, most likely protecting a nearby nest.

Another interesting hike took us up and over a heath hill. The footing was wet and spongy, and the trail was often nonexistent in this lightly-traveled part of the island. Mostly we followed narrow sheep trails marked with bits of loose wool.

There are sheep all over Iceland. They freely roam the grassy slopes during the summer. You see them on many secondary, gravel roads and have to slow down and give them a honk. Most of the ewes have two lambs which stay very close to mom. They seem to be mostly white but there are some black ones and spotted ones too. In the fall they are gathered off the hilltops down to the farms. Here's a couple of cute ones...