Day 4 - Friday 7/12/2019 - Drive to Hofn; Canyons, Ice Beaches and Glacier Lagoons
After a great night sleep in the tents with our heated mattress our only complaint was that it never got fully dark, nothing a blanket over your head wouldn't fix. I was again groggy in the morning, but Emily was fine. She went to the barn/kitchen to make oatmeal for breakfast. I got ready and took some photos from the yard area since the farm has a nice view of the Mýrdalsjökull Glacier.
We were on the road by a little after 9 or so again heading east on the Ring Road. We drove through the big lava field east of Vik. Our first stop of the day was after driving an hour 15 minutes or so and was Fjaðrárgljúfur, an ancient looking canyon that had a water fall at the end. The canyon had great rock walls which were around 100 meters tall and the entire thing was around 2 km long. It was a famous canyon where Game of Thrones has shot some scenes. There was a nice trail along the rim of the canyon on one side that we took about an hour to hike.
We then continued east and stopped for gas in Kirkjubæjarklaustur, the little village just east of Fjaðrárgljúfur canyon. Continuing the drive east on the ring road, the scenery was beautiful! We stopped for a pull off to view massive Vatnajökull glacier just before the Vatnajökull National Park Visitor Center to take on the amazing panorama! We then continued on east to the Vatnajökull National Park Visitor Center where we got to hike to the foot of massive Skaftafellsjökull glacier tongue! This one was much bigger than the one we hiked to the night before, but there were more people around. Still, a fantastic experience. The hike was around 4 km around trip. The hike started a little warm, but it was amazing how much colder it was when we dropped into the valley with the glacier. It also started a heavy sprinkle of rain when we were at the glacier. When we got back to the visitor center, we each got a sandwich from the cafeteria and split a coke for a nice late 2:15pm lunch. This visitor center was also the starting point for the hike to the famous and beautiful Svartifoss waterfall. We wanted to do it, but didn’t have enough time.
Back on the road again, for an hour or so drive over to the famous diamond beach at the mouth of the Jökulsárlón glacier lagoon. For most of the trip, the weather has been overcast, but pleasant. We finally hit some actual rain on this drive. The clouds continued to be low and blocking the view of the top of the ridge to our left. Diamond beach was true black sand and was on the ocean side of Jökulsárlón glacier lagoon so the waves washed all of the glaciers and ice pieces back up to the beach. We sat and watched glaciers and the waves for far too long. A truly special place! We then crossed the bridge to see actual glacier lagoon which was also fantastic! The glaciers there were massive, but the low clouds hid the true beauty which we would see the next day!
Next we again drove 45 minutes east to our AirBnB which was the Setberg Guesthouse, which was about 15 minutes west of Höfn. A very clean and nice guest house. We were very pleased with the stay. It consisted of maybe 6 guest rooms, a nice kitchen and one and a half baths. We then headed into Höfn to explore a bit and have dinner. We ate at Kaffi Hornid which was tasty. Emily had a lobster pizza and I had a lobster sandwich. Icelandic lobster isn’t really lobster, but tastes similar and looks the part. Icelandic or Norweigen Lobster is really langoustine and really more of a cross between a shrimp and a lobster. We then stopped to top off the gas tank and so that Em could get chapstick. We then retired back to the guesthouse, showered and called it a night a little after 8:00pm or so.
