Day 6: Höfn to Laugar (Eastern Iceland)

Today we drove from Höfn to Laugar, Northern Iceland. During the drive we stopped off in Egilsstaðir and took an unplanned visit to the eastern fjords. The proposed drive time was 5 hours but became closer to 7 hours. Today I learned that if a road is listed as impassible on the Iceland Road Safety website (road.is) it really is impassible.

We drove from Höfn towards the east coast as the only roads available to the north go along the east. The mountains along the east coast guard the interior and prevent many from passing. The eastern fjords are little towns that sit on the base of these mountains and contain a harbor each. The fjords have very mild weather around 0-5°C but wind brings the temperature down quite a lot. The drive along the coast reminds me of driving in British Columbia with the mountains on one side and the coast on the other. There are roads that connect the towns hugging the coast as well as a single road that goes into the mountains that connect the towns to Egilsstaðir. We tried to drive through two of these roads to get to Egilsstaðir, not discouraged by the signage and online information telling us not to try. The first try was blocked by a big sign and we clearly couldn’t pass it. So on the second route that would let us into the interiors I drove around the big sign. My options were to drive through the interior or detour around the eastern fjords an extra hour. since we already drove around for an extra 30 minutes I wanted to go through this interior road and off the windy roads on the coast.

I had hoped that the higher altitude in the mountains would cause the wind to subside and it would be easier to drive. Boy was I wrong. First off, 30m after the sign warning “Road Closed. Emergency services will cost extra if required past this sign.” the road turned to gravel, but was really mud with all the snow and rain we’ve been having lately. Once we started the incline after the muddy road, the ground stated to get harder (yay), it was ice.

Well that’s not too bad I thought. We had studded tires after-all and I’ve already driven on icy roads here. so we plugged along another 200m going up. That’s when we started to get hit by snow falling from above and the ice was starting to get covered. Still blowing at ridiculous speeds the wind made the small amount of falling snow blinding and annoying. We reached our second switch back, when I looked ahead and saw that this portion didn’t have any guard rails and there was a thick layer of snow on the road. This was basically the last nail in the coffin as we had been fighting and swerving to get up the first switch back. We got stuck on the road 20m into the ascend. That’s when I gave up. Too risky with no guard rails and the wind felt like it was going to blow us off, plus we were on half a tank of gas. Defeated we backed up and took a scenic tour of the Eastern Fjords for an hour to reach Egilsstaðir.

While driving to Egilsstaðir we braved through the wind and a 5km tunnel in the mountains, but one of the highlights was seeing wild reindeers on the mountain. We pulled off the road while trying to take some pictures, but as we got closer they ran up to hide in the mountains. Saddened from not getting a good shot, we went along the road and unexpectedly came across two reindeer that were a few meters from the road. From here, we got a good close up of one and went along our way before coming across herds of sheep and numerous horses.

For lunch, we stopped at a mountain viewing point and made some sandwiches from the leftover ingredients that we bought from the grocery store yesterday. After lunch, we drove to a small town to fill up gas and stretch our legs. Gas was was 183.3 isk/L and we were getting a great deal since gas was usually around 199.9 isk/L.

Egilsstaðir is located just on the other side of the mountains from the coast. We took a route weaving through a mountain pass instead of the blocked interior routs which take us over the mountains. Egilsstaðir is the largest settlement in eastern Iceland and roughly holds 2,300 people. We quickly stopped off here and grabbed some maps, as the town is surrounded by mountains and we wanted to make sure we could continue our route through them. On each side there were mountains that stood over Egilsstaðir as its guardians. It was truly a town surrounded by mountains.

As we made our way out of Egilsstaðir to Laugar, we started to ascend one of the mountains. As we climbed the thin sheet of snow grew thicker and ice on the road was more common. Before we knew it we reached the top and saw a vast horizon of just white. It was difficult to make out where the snow ended and clouds started. It was eerie not to see large looming mountains or the dynamic coast line that we were use to. We had lost our sense of direction as everything started to look the same. Luckily our GPS and our phones still had satellite signal and we were able to safely make our way to Laugar.

After meeting our host and her very affectionate dog Draka at Öndólfsstaðir Farm B&B, we grabbed dinner at a local restaurant called Dalakofinn.Since Laugar is quite small with a population of 120, it was a 3 in 1 stop- grocery store, restaurant and gas. We ordered in and I had a pizza crescent, while Yve had a fisherman sandwich.

The pizza crescent is more or less a big pizza pocket filled with mushrooms, bacon, pepperoni and cheese. It was quite good and not greasy which was a pleasant surprise. Yve’s burger was fried fish with lettuce, cucumber and hamburger sauce. I liked her burger too but it was not quite as good as the fish and chips we had in Höfn.

Wind was howling at night so no astro, but surprisingly the house doesn’t shake.

Tomorrow we explore the Myvatn Area (Northern Iceland).

-Dan