Orn's Travel Blog

I never got around to finish that round trip of Iceland so here it goes.  We left Húsavík on the north coast, the town I grew up in, and headed towards Egilsstaðir in the east where my mother lives.  The drive from Húsavík to Egilsstaðir is about three and a half hours so we weren’t too stressed with time.  To get us ready for the road we got one of my favorite snacks – a deep fried hot dog with heaps of melted cheese a traditional hot dog bread …ummm delicious!

Our first stop along the way was at Lake Mývatn, a fantastic area around a beautiful lake.  The area has everything to offer – great bird life, beautiful landscape and it is a volcanic hot spot.  A lot of the area is covered with not-so-old lava and we stared off by visiting the church that stands untouched like an island in the lava field where where we stopped to look at little lambs that were playing in the yard.

Next up was a place the group was really looking forward to – “The Crack”.  The Crack is a crack in the earth with a hot stream running through it where you can take a bath.  There are a couple of cracks that you can bathe in but the one we picked has a steep climb down to the stream but once you are down it is absolutely magical.

After the bath we spent some time checking out the volcanic craters and the “fake” craters that formed when the lava flowed over the lake and evaporating water exploded up through the lava – so they are not really volcanic but impressive never the less.  We also checked out Bjarnarflag, which is a very active hot-spot with many hot springs filled with volcanic mud.

After Mývatn the drive takes you into the highlands of Iceland where you have to prepared for anything – weather wise – especially since it was still May.  We left Mývatnssveit in a nice but windy weather but as we gained altitude the snow started coming down.  It wasn’t enough to cause us any problems however and we had an easy ride.  We saw a few reindeers on the way – mostly males sporting majestic horns.   Unfortunately the reindeers were too far away fro a decent photo.