Iceland - the East and North

Heading for the east coast, we crossed a pass and were soon above the snow line. 

It was all so spectacular in the sun.

Coming down the other side of the pass we could see our next destination nestled in among the show-dusted hills - the charming village of Seydisfjordur.

Filled with 19th century timber buildings, Seydisfjordur is also famous for having what they call Rainbow Street where a colourfully painted street runs up to a gorgeous church. It's just a tourist gimmick really. We followed google maps and, to our amazement, found we were staying right on Rainbow Street! We also soon learned that our accommodation was 80 metres from the only two restaurants in the town and about 40 metres from the pub, lol. 

We made our way to our room and nearly fell over. The view was stunning! We looked directly over the fjord with the pretty village around us and the mountains towering over everything. We don't always get the accommodation perfect but this one was!

The views from our balcony.

The pretty church sat at the end of Rainbow Street.

The sun shone and the scene was like something from a postcard. Picture-perfect colourful houses sat beneath snow-capped mountains. I have a bit of a love of cute houses so I headed out while the weather was good to explore the town.

The church was almost as gorgeous as the mountains.

Purple lupins covered the hillsides and along streams. It was pure magic.

The only downside to the town was that four cruise ships were in the port. These were the first cruise ships we had seen in Iceland. Crowds came in in groups but seeing we had arrived later in the day I think we missed the worst of it.

I was woken at 3am by my phone pinging so I got up. The sky outside was overcast but it was full daylight. This 24-hour daylight is so weird. It's so hard to know when it's time to go to bed or time to get up. There have been a few times where one of us has woken up and assumed it was time to get up, only to find it was 2am!

The morning brought no sunshine. It was still overcast. Bugger. The scenery was so much more spectacular with sunlight on it. We went for a good walk up a hill. The views were good but the mountains were obscured by clouds.

A patch of Heather among the lupins. 

We checked out of our amazing room and headed a long way out of our way to the small town of Bakkagerdi. The attraction here was a puffin colony. About 10,000 sea birds nest on this one tiny island each year. Sadly, a harbour was built between the island and the mainland in the 60's and it's now not quite the safe haven that it once was for the birds. Nonetheless, the birds keep coming back. Puffins nest in the same hole each year.

To our astonishment, most of the island was covered in puffins! Wooden platforms led right through the nesting area and people could watch puffins all around them. It was amazing! 

We were so close to them. I had to laugh at the keen bird photographers who brought SLR cameras and massive lenses with them. They were completely unnecessary. I took these pics with my point and shoot camera!

Those unusually shaped eyes seem sad somehow.

A young bird peeped out from a burrow.

The puffins made such strange noises. I hope you can hear this.

In the town was a really old traditional house that had been restored. They used to put turf on the rooves, and sometimes the walls, of houses as insulation. We've never seen one that grew grass as long as this though! It must be Iceland's hairiest house!

Heading back onto the ring road we passed through more other-worldly landscapes.

There were more spectacular waterfalls that we could ever see in a lifetime.

We passed pinto mountains created by white snow on dark ground.

An incredible mountain appeared in the distance. We later worked out this was Herdubreid, Iceland's national mountain. It was very impressive. 

We pulled off the road to get a good look at it and found a dirt track heading into the vast expanse of lunar-like landscape. We drove for a minute or two and found ourselves surrounded by the nothingness. It was completely silent. It was so bizarre!

We wanted to see the famous Dettifoss Waterfall but we were now back on the well-worn tourist trail and thought it might be too busy. We got to the car park at about 6pm and found it wasn't busy at all so we donned our wet-weather gear and headed out to the falls.

Dettifoss Falls (which John promptly name Dental-floss Falls) were incredible! They're not that high, but they're wide. The big thing is the sheer volume of water that tumbles over the cliffs. 400 cubic metres of water thunders over the edge every second! It roared! Rainbows appeared and disappeared. It was magical!

 Spray flew everywhere and we were soaked within minutes. So was the camera lens!

All this was set in a bizarre moon-like landscape of boulders and pools

Upstream, a series of smaller waterfalls tumbled down from a long, horseshoe-shaped cliff.

We finally got to our cabin in Asbyrgi at about 8.30pm. It was a big and wonderful day!

Our gorgeous, comfortable cabin sat on open land and had amazing views across to a gorge. We learned to love these remote cabins. Usually set on farmland to bring extra income to the farmers, they are often warm and cosy, despite looking like they'll get blown off the planet at any minute. 

Aspergi is located at the northern end of the same Vatnojokull National Park that we had visited in the south of the country. The park is huge! This part of the park though is all about canyons and is a great place to hike.

We had a nice hike at nearby Vesturdalur surrounded by wildflowers.

We did another walk which turned into a bit of a marathon. It was supposed to be about 12 kms but by the time we added some sights on it was about 15kms or so. First we explored an area where lava formed weird rock formations.

The stone columns looked like the ends of a stack of pencils when viewed from the top.

Lava can form so many weird shapes!

On top of an old volcanic hill.

For a looooong time, we walked through low scrub on an open plain that ran along the top of the canyon. One of the plants threw up clouds of pollen when we brushed past.

We walked along the edge of the canyon in many places.

Near the end of the walk we suddenly came across a cliff. Our path led away below us.

There was a rope that we had to use to climb down!

Finally, almost five hours after we started, we staggered into our final destination - the local cafe for a well-earned lunch.

John was doing some research and found out that we were only 45 minutes from Husavik, the town where "Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga" was filmed. We love this whacky movie so we decided at the spur of the moment to visit it.

To get there we drove around a large peninsula. The mountain views were amazing!

Husavik is located on a gorgeous mountain-backed bay.

The house where Will Ferrell's character lived.

The pub in the movie.

The church where Will's character rang the bell from the belltower.

There was even a "Jaja Ding Dong" bar! Tacky, I know, but so is the movie in many ways so it was in keeping with the theme.

Even the cocktails were named after the town and songs in the movie.

You've gotta love the variety of things to do and see in this country!

See you next time.

Heather and John