After already adding a North American start to my (supposedly) European holiday, it was all but impossible to resist a stopover in Iceland on the way to the European continent. I started building a two or three day itinerary but it didn’t take long before I was telling myself the obvious: You’re gonna need a bigger boat, ahem, a bigger trip. And so, my plan for the island at the top of the world became this: 10 days, a Happy Campers campervan, a camera, a wish list of sights to see along the ring road and the choice of whichever campsites were closest at the end of each day. Simple.
Friday – Reykjavík
My flight arrived at Keflavik Airport (30 minutes outside the capital, Reykavik) around 6am on Friday morning. I had a couple of hours to wait until the 8:30 shuttle bus that would take me to the Happy Campers office, which was enough time to buy some duty free “essentials” – a six pack of Viking beer, a bottle of blueberry liqueur and a block of dark chocolate. As we were about to leave the airport, the driver looked at the softshell jacket I’d worn on the plane and asked “Did you bring anything warmer?” “Oh yeah in my bag,” I assured him. “Put it on now,” he told me, obviously knowing a blissfully ignorant Aussie about to freeze in the gale force winds of Iceland when he saw one.
At the Happy Campers office I completed the paperwork, got some information about the ring road and a briefing on the campervan. Then they handed me the keys and said “Have fun!”
The plan for the first day was fairly simple: stock up on groceries, go for a walk around town in Reykavik and stay at the nearby campground for the night so I could test out everything in the van before heading out on the ring road the next day.
Saturday – Reykjavík to Skógarfoss
I woke up Saturday to find a good layer of frost on the van and everything else in the campground. Okay, so this is how it’s going to be. Cold. While I was defrosting the windscreen I realised I had a problem with the inverter unit that I’d be relying on to keep all my devices charged on the road. I called the rental company and decided to go pick up the replacement from them, rather than waiting for someone to be available to bring it to me. An hour round trip detour wasn’t the ideal way to start but at least I lost no time at the office because, as I pulled up, they were standing beside the van with a replacement unit before I had even put the handbrake on.
Technical issues resolved, I was headed out on the golden circle, a well worn tourist path for seeing a few big sights within a days’ drive of Reykavik. The first stop was Thingvellir, a national park and the first site of the Icelandic parliament, the Althing, in 930 AD and for another 900 years after that. I’d been reading Richard Fidler and Kari Gislason’s Saga Land about the Icelandic sagas before I left Australia and so it was pretty cool to be standing at the location of Lögberg, the law rock. As the book explains, this is where Iceland’s most famous saga author, Snorri Sturluson, and others before and after him, had stood as the Law Speaker at the Althing.
Next was the Geysir hot spring area to see the bubbling mud pits and geysers where crowds gather to watch one in geyser particular, Strokkur, blast hot water up to 30m into the air every 12 or so minutes. A short drive up the road completed the golden circle with Gullfoss (Golden Falls) where 140 cubic metres of water per second pour over the top of the falls.
There were a few nearby options for campsites I could have taken at that point but earlier in the day I’d checked the weather forecast and decided that if I was going to do a glacier hike, it would have to be the next day. So with over 300km to go to the meeting point for the next morning, the objective was to get as far along the road as the fading light would allow and reduce the distance I’d need to drive early the next morning. Despite the lengthening shadows and my reluctance to be out driving after sunset, I couldn’t resist stopping in at Seljalandsfoss for the opportunity to capture the sunset from behind the stunning waterfall. And then, with the light well and truly gone, I travelled the last 15km in the dark to the campground beside Skógarfoss, one of Icelands highest waterfalls at 60m high.
For my first day out on the road, I was immensely satisfied with what I’d managed to see. But Iceland had one more trick to come. At around 8pm, as I came back from the campground office, the sky lit up with dancing green snakes and I got my first ever look at the aurora borealis, or Northern Lights. My camera was back in the van so I tried to grab one picture with my phone but, knowing it could never do it justice, I ended up just standing there, taking in all in thinking “How good is this?”
Sunday – Skógarfoss to Höfn
On Sunday morning I was up before the sun (and anyone else in the camp ground). After a quick breakfast I snuck in a couple of pre-dawn photos of the Skógarfoss waterfall and then I was on the road for the 2 hour drive to the meeting point for the day’s glacier hike.
Our hike was on the Falljökull outlet ofIceland’s largest glacier Vatnajökull and was led by an excellent local guide, Tinna, who as it turns out had gone to university on the Gold Coast for a few years and so knew “all about you Aussies” (who us?). The company’s monster all-weather, all-terrain truck meant we didn’t have far to hike before it was time to fit our crampons to our boots and get onto the ice. The weather was absolutely perfect and, with the sun shining and no wind, and spent a lot of the time with our jackets off as we hiked.
Next up was a walk to Svartifoss waterfall where the autumn leaves and basalt columns made for some great photos. I also got a great view back across to the glacier from the walking trail.
The last stop of the day was the somewhat surreal iceberg lagoon, Jökulsárlón, and the adjacent “Diamond Beach” which gets its name from the the iceberg fragments washing up on the black sand.
I picked the campground at the little town of Höfn as my resting place for the night and picked a spot up on the hill with a few other campers, hoping the forecast for clear skies and a high chance of aurora activity would produce some magic for the second night in a row. In the end, we got something more like a green smudge near the horizon, rather than the bright dancing lights of the previous night, but I had my camera ready and got the pictures I could.
Monday – Höfn to Fossardalur
Monday marked the start of my drive into Iceland’s east fjords region and, driving along in my van, I couldn’t help but feel like a toy in a giant’s playground. The sheer scale of the landscape dominates everything here as the mountains reach towards the heavens on one side of the road and plunge rapidly into the sea on the other.
The day started off very wet and windy and after a late night waiting for the Northern Lights the night before, I decided to postpone getting out on the road in favour of a hot shower and a call home to Mum and Dad. As the rain began to lighten, I re-joined the ring road and headed east, stopping for photos a couple of times along the way. The first, and only, town I called into for the day was the little port town of Djúpivgur, which historically was a key trading port with the Germans and Danes. It’s also home to Eggin í Gleðivík (the Eggs at Merry Bay), a sculpture of 34 giant granite eggs representing the eggs of the various birds of the region.
Not too far into the next fjord was the turn off to the steep climb up to the Fossadular Campground. With strong winds forecast, I nosed the van in behind an earth wall and finally opened one of those Viking Beers.
Tuesday – Fossardalur to Végarður
One of the reasons I’d chosen the campsite was that I’d read the Fossardalur valley was a nice place to take a drive. The campsite manager had said I should take the short drive up to the sign for the start of the walking trail and then I could continue on foot for as far as I liked. After 30 minutes of driving, I’d seen no such sign and decided the whole place was too stunning to not go just a little further. There were few indications that maybe the van wasn’t made for these kinds of roads – like the gas stove leaping from its space to bounce around freely in the back and the wheels spinning as I tried to climb a steep hill – but I wasn’t sure that’s what the van was telling me and so I pushed on further and further until I finally decided that I’d better turn around and head back out onto the ring road if I was going to get to anywhere else today.
Continuing along the ring road, in and out of the fjords, I came to the town of Stöðvarfjörður and in it Petra’s Stone Collection. The outdoor display in the garden of Petra’s home represents a lifetime of collecting the most interesting and stunning stones from around East Iceland and is maintained by Petra’s family since her passing a few years ago. Also on display are other items Petra collected including matchboxes, playing card and pens. I couldn’t help seeing some parallels with my own Grandad’s passion for gems and minerals and left a message in the book to say how much I thought he would have enjoyed seeing this collection.
My next stop was in Egilsstaðir, the largest city in east Iceland, to restock some of my food supplies and to get some tips from the local tourist info office. I picked a campsite out on the shore of Lagarfljót (lake) but arrived to find it had closed for the year. Hoping to have more luck at the next campsite, I drove on and found my place for the night at Végarður campsite. This was the half way point of my trip and, knowing there was a lot still to see in the north, I was glad to have got as far around the ring road as I had.
Stay tuned for some video footage of my first five days as well as the next post on Part 2 of my Icelandic adventure where I add some fire to all this ice, checkout a well known filming location (I’m talking to you GoT fans), visit Iceland’s highest town, eat fermented (read: rotten) shark and go searching for giants underground.
Wow, just awesome Paul! Looks like you had an absolute blast! I gotta get the family there someday!