Driving the Ring Road: Part 2

Húsavik was a lovely town. However, it is well known for both whale watching and having a large number of pregnant teenagers: we didn't see either. We did see yet another nice church though!

Next, we went to two of the most powerful waterfalls in Iceland: Selfoss and Dettifoss. Getting there involved a walk through thick snow, a firm reminder that summer hadn't really hit the north of Iceland yet.

Spot the rainbow.

After this, it was a long drive to the Eastfjords. That night we stayed in the town of Bakkagerði and made a quick stop to see the first puffins I've seen in Iceland.

We camped another night, but this time I did almost freeze. There are three main problems with camping in Iceland: 1. It's cold. 2. In summer, it doesn't get dark at all. 3. The birds are bloody noisy. But I did have fun, I promise! The next morning, the boys woke up at 6am to hike a nearby mountain whilst Enya and I slept in until a normal time. They arrived back just as we were getting breakfast ready. They had a good time but it sounded like some kind of torture exercise to me.

We drove back to the larger town of Egilsstaðir, ready to go off and explore the rest of the Eastfjords. But, it was at this point that we had our only minor disaster of the holiday: two of the tyres had burst driving on the gravel roads. To cut a long story short, the boys went to a local garage to get it fixed whilst Enya and I sat in the N1 petrol station for three hours drinking coffee (I'm embarrassed about the gender divisions here). Egilsstaðir is a particularly boring town and it turns out the N1 is the place to be. At around midday all the local working men came in to buy lunch, shortly followed by the women and children (more gender divisions). Luckily, the car's tyres had been in such bad condition before bursting that the car hire company paid for four brand new tyres so it could have all been a lot worse.

We had a little time to explore the Eastfjords and went to the town of Fáskrúðsfjörður which used to be a base for French fishermen and still has many French influences.

After the Eastfjords, we travelled through the South. We didn't have to make too many stops as we've all been so many times before, but we went for a hike in Skaftafell National Park and stopped at the beautiful cliffs at Dyrhólaey.

Then it was time for our final stop and one of the places I was most excited about: The Westman Islands. I'd tried to go way back in November but the ferry hadn't been running due to bad weather so I was very happy to finally go on one of the sunniest days of the year.

The highlight of the Westman islands is climbing the small volcano which erupted around 40 years ago. It's still hot enough that you can barbecue food in the ground!

The next day, it was time to drive back to Reykjavik. I had the most fantastic nine days with lovely people and I'm so glad I got to finally do the ultimate Icelandic road trip!