Breakfast was yummy and uncomplicated. We all have a buffet routine now and watching everyone collect their food is like a beautiful ballet!
Today was a big driving day – 6 hours altogether, but we had a few stops planned along the way. The first was our last glacier tongue this holiday, called Flaajokull. To get there, the instructions told us to turn left off route 1 and drive to the parking lot. From there, there was a short hike to the face of the glacier. It was a rough gravel track that seemed to repeatedly go the wrong way! There was a large river that the track had to follow, so it meandered about in a very inefficient manner! I saw a small flock of ptarmigan at the side of the road, but apart from that, one other car was the only sign of life. There was a spectacular causeway to drive across – that felt very narrow – but the car park was disappointing: four white stones with P painted on them and a sign in Icelandic that was too faded for Google translate to help us with. The short hike has extended as the glacier has shrunk until it would have taken us at least two hours to get there and it was chucking it down with rain. Slightly frustrated, Keith started back along the track to the main road.
Our next planned stop for the town of Hofn. We went to the Netto to buy lunch and top up the snack bag. We found mini pizzas and a weird foot long pastry thing, and then headed to the petrol station to top the car up and buy petrol station ice cream (a speciality of an Ob station). In Reykjavik, we saw a man buy an ice cream that had been dipped in chocolate and covered in sprinkles. We decided the time was now and ordered the smallest tub they had, which cost £4. I didn’t know how to ask for the chocolate dipping and the lady was not encouraging, so we might have to try again later.
The rest of our journey was sprinkled with unscheduled stops wherever we could pull over to identify birds or take photos. Our route took us along the coast for quite a long way and we saw loads of flocks of eider ducks in both plumages on the sea. When we turned inland into the first proper fjord, we also saw ducklings.
Jamie promised us whales on this journey yesterday. We didn’t see any. Jamie promised us that when we went through the tunnel to the East, the weather would magically improve. I think Jamie has lied to us. We have seen a lot of rain today.
We did manage to see the blue cliffs at Blabjorg and added another stone to our geological shelf in the Hyundai Santa Fe. Not entirely sure how we are going to get them home yet, but we are particularly fond of Dwayne and Chris.
At this point we detoured from the prescribed route, which took us around 4 more fjords and took the up and over route inland. This turned out to be spectacular. It was categorised as a “secondary road – gravel” and was in the process of being resurfaced, which left piles of gravel in the middle of the road. Keith navigated his way around the road flattening device and we climbed steep sections and twisty sections, past waterfalls and chunks of rock to get up to the cloud level. We kept climbing even after this until we were about 900m above sea level, then we dropped out of the cloud the other side and into a very fertile valley being farmed more intensively than most other areas we have seen. They had a lot of sheep, horses and cows and even a field of wheat a bit further down. The secondary road became a primary road and was eventually paved as we descended into the valley and towards Egilsstadir.
We arrived at the hotel with just enough time to check in, find our bathing stuff and head slightly further north to the Vok Baths. These were a much classier bathing facility than the previous one with three different hot tub like pools at gradually increasing temperatures. There was also the option of taking a dip in the lake (which most of us managed at least a bit of) to then return gratefully to soak in the warmth. There were, of course, some noisy Americans, but they were eclipsed by the fifteen Icelandic 12 year olds hurling themselves into the lake, throwing metal straws at each other and collecting lake weed to take into the baths. Such a joy. Mila and I had a lovely pat-the-water conversation with a Spanish baby and we used our drinks token to get a delicious strawberry and yoghurt smoothie to drink in the pool bar area. The baths are in a beautiful location and the hot/cold experience was invigorating.
We enjoyed out post dip infusions (I had a barley one, which I enjoyed, but the children have been ruined by Ribena and discovering the blackcurrant tea was made with the leaves and not the fruit was too much disappointment!) We then headed back to the hotel to relax and then change for dinner.
Keith had booked a restaurant in another hotel for dinner and we made our way there – past the sight and smell of the cow barn – in time for our reservation. The food on the menu was super complicated and every option either had prawns (allergic), celeriac (yuk) in or was over £40 each. Fortunately, they were happy for Danny (at nearly 17!) to eat the chicken and chips off the children’s menu (for 12 years or younger) and it was a generous portion so he was happy! We rounded the meal off with a crème bruleé in a bucket and some raspberry sorbet with crumble.
