Wednesday, October 2nd, our 25th wedding anniversary had us up early, as we were still not quite accustomed the time change. Our host did not start serving breakfast until 7:30, so we brewed some hot tea and coffee in our room and watched the mountains come alive. We ventured into the main house to enjoy a traditional Icelandic breakfast buffet, including a new favorite, Skyr! Skyr is yogurt, and frequently is made by each kitchen with a bit of culture from the previous batch. Its tangy like Greek yogurt, and very smooth. Several places along the route had different batches of Skyr, but my favorite was the thicker style, so much so that I’ve ordered a culture and will make some here in Oklahoma. They also served an oatmeal, granola, berry compote, deli meats and cheese, bread, pastries, porriage, and of course, strong hot coffee. The Icelanders don’t eat many cold foods, everything is served HOT, which I guess makes sense since the ambient temps rarely get over mid 70sF, and 30s in the fall and winter.The local farm dog was anxious to see us and when we walked back and forth to our cabin happily greeted us with a toy for fetch. She had beautiful blue eyes and boundless energy.
After breakfast, we loaded the car up and headed for Skogafoss waterfall, a gorgeous 60m waterfall surrounded by the volcanic black sand and an easy walk up. Despite the early morning time, it was already getting crowded, thus I have to admit I have done a little photoshop magic to preserve the pristine beauty of the area by removing other tourists.
After that stop, we ventured on to Kvernufoss waterfall, which is famed for being the one you can walk behind. This too had several busses and many cars full of people, so you know Ray, we did the “national lampoons” stop, and then found an F road to explore. F roads require by law a 4 wheel drive vehicle, which our beloved Dacia was, and this road was unlabeled and calling his name. We drove the terrain, which ended up being a mining road, for about 15 miles up, and were rewarded with stunning views and more waterfalls. Cairns were piled up along the route, and were used in older days as way points in the snow. At times, the road got quite rough, but we traversed on until we saw the mining trucks and made our way back down. It seemed like we were thousands of feet of altitude high, but when I checked, we were only about 1600ft above sea level.
From there, we headed to Vik for lunch. Vik is famous for the black sand beaches, including Reynisfjara beach which is surrounded by black basalt columns that jut up drastically on shore. Its also famous for sneaker waves, which we got to see in action. Random waves suddenly appear and are huge and much more powerful than regular waves. They come up higher on the shore and can ‘sneak’ one into a riptide, so warnings are present when sneaker wave activity is high, which they were on the day we visited. Not all the tourists were giving it proper caution though and we were sure we were going to see someone sucked out to sea. Thankfully, it didn’t happen while we were there. I could have sat and watched the waves for hours, but my stomach was grumbling and we had more country to see!
We headed into town and found a nice pub, the Ströndin Pub, where Ray got his first fish and chips and I ordered some chicken wings. We visited the Icewear store, which was interesting but very expensive! We then took the short walk down to the shore to Vikurfjara Black Sand Beach, which is very popular for horseback riding. It was much calmer there, no sneaker waves, and the scenery was beautiful.
Our next stop was one of my absolute favorite destinations, and I was so excited to see it, I missed a location that I really wanted to go to. However, we decided that maybe its not a bad thing to leave some spots to visit next time.
Glacier Lagoon is inland across a bridge from Diamond Beach. As we crested a hill, we could see large floating icebergs and seals and only looked to our left! MISTAKE! Diamond Beach was just to our right, but we totally missed it.
The sun was starting to set and the golden hour was upon us and the scenery was nothing less than stunning. Harbor seals swam around the icebergs, unbothered by the zodiac boats touring around. We caught a surprise engagement, made just a little more special to us since it was our wedding anniversary (she said yes!) The excitement was contagious and the entire crowd erupted in applause when he dropped to one knee and she squealed yes!
We got back in the car and headed towards Hofn. We saw a cute little coffee spot and filled up with a tasty dark chocolate mocha latte for me and drip for Ray. They had a fabulous local photographer’s work on display, which was great inspiration for our work. I spotted a flyer for a reindeer sanctuary, so I snapped a pic of the address to add to our itinerary for the next day.
As evening was closing in on us, we wrapped up pics at the bay and headed to our cottage stay at Arnanes Country Hotel near Hofn. Here is where we learned that we were entering the protected reindeer range, and that IF we were to see any wild reindeer it would likely be the next day. We ate at a great seafood restaurant, Pakhus , and had lobster bisque and for my entrée I had Grilled fillet of lamb, pulled lamb shank, creamy mash, baked carrot, noisette sun choke pure, red wine jus. Ray enjoyed the baked cod. This restaurant used to be a fish packing house and is situated right on the wharf. I highly recommend it, but be prepared for a wait.
Our room was quaint and cozy, bedecked in wood paneling from top to bottom. I would have liked to have had the restaurant on site open for after dinner drinks, but alas, it was out of season.
