I woke up too early from the warmest sleep of the trip but waking up early was pretty typical for me. Jenn slept in which was nice. We had a decent breakfast and emerged to so much less wind than the day before that it almost felt like a different place. In the light of morning, the hotel actually seemed like it was in a reasonably nice place, instead of this desolate, windswept knoll.

We headed back the way we came the night before, but only a couple of km (in sight of our hotel, actually) to Skútustaðagígar, the pseudo craters. The were climbed one of them – they aren’t very high – for views of the lake but decided not to do the full walk given everything we wanted to do.

We then headed further back the way we came to the most famous lava field in the north, if not the entire country, Dimmuborgir. The first thing that surprised us about this place was how it accessible it was in comparison to other lava field walks we’ve done. The trail was asphalt to start and it is clear that a decision was made to make this particular place more accessible to older tourists than most of the other lava fields. This is the land of the Yule Lads and so there were a few things set up here in honour of them.

We did a bit of a walk here because it was much easier than walking in most lava fields.

There’s a reason Dimmuborgir is popular. The various rocks are significantly larger than they are in most if not all of the lava fields we visited.

There’s a crater right here that you can walk up. We decided not to for two reasons, the first of which is that we had a lot to do today and the second is that it was so windy the day before we assumed it might be really bad up there today.

After our walk we headed just up the road, again back the way we came, to Grjótagjá, aka the Games of Thrones cave where Jon Snow and Ygritte have sex. In the show, the cave is lit with TV lighting. In person, it’s definitely not. There are all sorts of things on the internet about visiting Grjótagjá but I gotta say, don’t both unless you have a headlamp. Even in the middle of the day it was quite hard to see. And the footing is not easy so if you plan on using your phone as a flashlight, you could easily drop it in the water ( As far as I know, the water is too hot to go into though I can’t say the cave felt that way while I was in it.) Because of the footing, Jenn didn’t go inside and it was so busy that we didn’t get a photo. (There were fewer people at Dimmuborgir though it’s a much bigger place so maybe it was just that those people were all spread out.) So yeah, I went in Grjótagjá and I have no photo proof.

Then we headed back over the mountain pass to Hverir, the geothermal area we skipped the night before. The moment we went over the pass the wind got worse though it never approached how bad it was the day before. As we pulled in we encountered not one but two vans that were blocking the access road. This was an occasional problem we experienced caused by how Iceland enforces parking at the pay parking areas. They take a picture of your plate. So what you get is these idiots who are desperate not to pay $7-$10 per car, so they pull into the road and stop, trying to either decide whether or not it’s worth it to pay or they try to take pictures from far away. Meanwhile, drivers on the Ring Road try to pull off and find the cars in front of them inexplicably stopped, blocking the way. It only happened to us a few times but it’s ridiculous. In every case the car had more than one person in it meaning they were trying to cheap out on paying a few bucks per person to visit a natural sight.

Hverir is much cooler than Leirhnjúkur and much easier to get to. (And less windy!) So if you do have to make a choice between the two, go to Hverir.

I have never been to Yelllowstone, though weirdly I’ve driven by it. And I have really never seen anything like this.

One of the great things about this trip is that it felt like we saw something we’d never seen before pretty much once a day. And this was one of the highlights for me, the kind of place I’ve never been to before and maybe I won’t see again.

After we wandered around, we headed back west over the pass again to continue on our journey on the Ring Road. We drove around the north side of Mývatn and then began the journey out of the Highlands. We drove up a bit over another pass and then started heading slowly down.

Soon we came to yet another waterfall, this one in a pretty valley.

There are actually a few waterfalls here, and there was a smaller one down river with a bridge over it. We walked over to the store/cafe so we could go to the washroom and Jenn could get a coffee. The toilet alarm was going off, though, so we had to wait for the staff to sort it out.

It had been pretty warm in Mývatn, compared to the previous day, but it wasn’t really at Hverir due to the wind. But as you can see from the picture above, by the time we got to Goðafoss, it was getting into the high teens.

Then we headed a bit to the one toll road in Iceland, a tunnel. This one is over 7km long but was otherwise very similar to the previous tunnel. You pay online and can pay any time within 24 hours of going through it, so it’s very easy.

But it’s still a bit of crazy experience driving west because you enter in a rural area and you pop out across the fjord from Akureyri. Akureyri (population 18,500) is the 4th largest city in Iceland and the only top 4 not in Greater Reykjavik and the only one of the top 8 communities by population that isn’t within an hour’s drive of Reykjavik. Basically, it’s the largest urban area outside of the Greater Reykjavik and Reykjanesskagi, which, in another other country, would have enough people to be its own urban area. What I’m trying to say is that, emerging from the tunnel, Akureyri is a shock. Just an absolute shock. We knew it had some people but we weren’t prepared for how big it seemed after days of towns and villages.

We drove into the downtown and struggled to find a parking spot. Parking is free on the weekends and the parking lots were rammed. So we had to try a few lots before we found one. And yes, it was still warm.

We walked a couple blocks towards a place Jenn and found and saw shawarma. In a city, we figured we might as well and so we ate there. It was really busy when we got there but cleared out pretty quickly. The shawarma was fine. But when I think about it as “shawarma in a town of 18000” it was probably pretty good.

We then we went to Akureyrarkirkja, which was under construction, even more so than the one in Reykjavik.

We had to do a bit of a detour to get around to it. We walked from there to the Botanical gardens and walked around there for a while. We found the Icelandic part and looked and some of the strange, and usually very small, plants.

Then we walked back down the hill to the car and made our way to the largest mall in the north of Iceland. Is it bigger than the Galleria? Not sure. We went to the mall for the grocery store, which was somehow at the other end despite the sign being near where we parked. As usual, we got warm walking around.

Back in the car we decided not to go to Siglufjörður. Siglufjörður is a town at the northern end of the peninsula Akureyri is at the base of. It is known as the northernmost town in Iceland but, since there are communities in the Westfjords that are north of there it might be the northernmost of its size. We were going to go more because it’s where Trapped is set. And there’s a herring history museum. But, sitting in the parking lot, it was after 5 already. And sure, we’d have enough light to drive around the peninsula, as it’s Iceland in August. But who knew what time we’d get to our guesthouse or dinner. So we figured we’d drive the Ring Road, which is still inland here, instead.

So went across the street and got gas. We pulled out of the gas station and stopped at the light. In Iceland, there is no right on red. But there are yield signs all over the damn place. On our return from our day trip to the Highlands, the guide pulled into a turn lane and there was a tourist in the turn lane, with yield sign, refusing to move. He honked and honked and tourist didn’t go until the light turned. The guide was frustrated. We were thinking about that as we looked at the yield sign below the traffic light and decided what it meant. We decided we could turn right.

We turned the corner and immediately saw lights in the mirror and heard the siren. The cops had been sitting right behind us. The first cop came up to the car and seemed ready to give us a ticket. But then her partner showed up. We then explained our confusion. They debated and decided to let us off with a warning. We never did find out why there’s a yield sign under a traffic light when you can’t yield to anything.

We headed out of town and across country. We entered a valley that felt completely different from where we had been the last couple of days. And then we went through a pass and came down what felt like the widest valley we’d been in at least in some time. It once again felt like were were in a different country as it was clearly a farming region.

We drove down the valley and left the Ring Road to drive to our guesthouse. It was on one side of the valley, a farm. It also felt like an industrial guesthouse a little bit, given the size (at least 10 rooms…at least, and a large breakfast area). As I said before, it feels like “guesthouse” and “hotel” are on a continuum. (This was the only place we stayed that had a TV with channels – as opposed to an app – with no English channels. Not that there should be English channels in any non-English country, only that they are everywhere else.)

We drove to Sauðárkrókur for dinner. Before we drove into town, we stopped by the water. I wanted to put my hand in the Arctic Ocean. I have had the opportunity to swim in most of the world’s oceans:

• Antarctic/Southern*: Swam in the Bass Strait and the Great Australian Bight, both of which are considered part of the Indian Ocean outside of Australia but, in Australia, are considered part of the Southern Ocean
• Atlantic:
  • Swam all up and down the west side, in Canada, in many US states, in Brazil
  • Swam in the northeast, in the UK
  • Swam in the Mediterranean, if that counts
• Indian: Swam in the southeast corner, in Australia (and also the Bass Strait and Great Australian Bight)
• Pacific:
  • Swam in the northeast, in Vancouver, and put my toes or hands in at beaches in Oregon and California (and may have swam in California but don’t remember)
  • Swam in the east centre in Mexico
  • Swam in the southwest in Australia

So the Arctic was my last ocean to try. However, it turns out, it was the Greenland Sea. Which is, according to some, the Atlantic and not the Arctic. (I still should have run in! It was our warmest day.)

For dinner we found our way to a pub and I got to try Plokkfiskur, which is basically mashed potatoes with fish mixed in. I loved it.

We went back to the guesthouse and the young guys we’d seen earlier were indeed making noise. We gave them awhile eventually then I went up and asked them to quiet down. To their credit, they at least listened to me. Fortunately for us, when I got back in the room I found a fan, and it was loud. So loud that it wasn’t really possible that hear them very much.

Before all of that, we went outside to try the hot tub. But we couldn’t figure out how to turn on the jets so instead we went in the sauna, which looked out over the valley (the door was glass). Eventually it got too hot for me and I went inside.

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