Twenty Days in Iceland, A Photo Travelogue

Day 18-20: Seydisfjordur, Borgarfjordur, Eskifjordur

We headed to our final destination, stopping along the way for a hike that Oskar suggested: from Borgarfjordur to Brunavik. Luckily, we missed the turn to the trailhead and had to drive all the way to the tiny port at the end of the road to turn around. Once in the port, we came upon a large puffin colony, with more than 10,000 nesting pairs. Some were so close we could almost touch them.

The hike climbed up and over the mountain separating Borgarfjordur Eystri from the next bay south, Brunavik. The weather that day and the scenery were both spectacular.

The drive to Seydisfjordur was another steep up-and-over some mountains (around 3000' tall - however, they rise so steeply from sea level that they seem much higher than they actually are.)

Seydisfjordur is a very charming place - it's preserved many of its old buildings and is also somewhat of an artists' colony. The very narrow fjord was closest to what we hoped to find in this part of Iceland.

Our first hike here was up the river valley of Vestdalur. We enjoyed the spectacular sets of falls on the way up to the lake Vestdalsvatn. The weather took a turn for the worse once we hit the lake and we had to high-tail it back down to town, as Pete forgot to bring along his raincoat.

The next day we decided to take a drive south to visit some neighboring towns. Neskaupstadur and Eskifjordur. The towns themselves weren't too exciting, but we did have a pleasant hike past the Eskifjordur lighthouse and into a small nature preserve. This was one of several places where we touched the North Atlantic.

The most impressive part of the day was driving through the one-lane tunnel (more than 1/3 mile long) on the drive to Eskifjordur - we weren't sure how they dealt with the two-way traffic sharing the single lane since it wasn't possible to see the entire tunnel from either end, and the signs in Icelandic were hardly helpful. However, we pressed on and discovered two small turnouts within the tunnel that can be used if necessary. Luckily, traffic is so light in this area of the country that we didn't need to use them during our two trips through the tunnel.

Day 21 - the trip home

The flight from Egilsstadir to Reykjavik was short (~1 hour) and uneventful. We had several hours to kill in Reykjavik, so we decided to stop in at the Blue Lagoon for a last dip. This location was much larger than the one at Myvatn, and the drizzle gave the experience an added ambiance.

The flight back to San Francisco was also uneventful, but pretty long (about 9 hours). We were unexpectedly upgraded to Business Class since they'd oversold Economy, and we definitely made use of the free video players - watching three movies sure helps the time pass. Another bonus... we also got some great views of Greenland and Hudson Bay before heading south over western Canada, Washington, Oregon, and eventually all the way back home to San Francisco.