I reverted to being 6 again and even Leigh couldn't help but smile for his photo next to the Christmas tree.
The smell of Christmas was in the air and they had a fire burning. Not exactly what we had expected on our summer holiday!! We then ventured on towards Myvatn again with the hope of catching the vistior centre at the Geothermal power plant but didn't quite make it. We had a little drive around the lake, but as the weather had turned pretty wet and miserable since the day before when we had stuning views, we decided to head off. Passing the steaming vents of Krafla and the super stinky mud baths, we drove on out to the East driving past the road from hell to Dettifoss and some pretty incredible lava fields.
Looking over the vast fields, its hard to imaging just how powerful and devastating these volanoes can be. Te lava is metres high in places and all cracked as its cooled as it flowed.
After crossing the bridge at the road from hell, we entrered new territory. The landscape soon tured from lava fields, to flat grass/moss lands then into desserted barren landscapes that resmebled the images you see on the moon.
The rain was still coming down and the fog was beginning to settle. We stopped for Leigh to take some pictures and I decided I would drive the next stretch.
As usual when I took to the wheel, the weather got worse, the fog really settled on the hills to a much reduced visibility and the once, lovely tarmac road turned to a gravel road with bumps and dips and more sheep on it than anywhere else we‘d seen so far. Then to put the icing on the cake, we came to a 10% gradient downwards hill, with few barriers (only required for super scary corners) a few 4 x 4‘s keen to pass, and lots of very sharp corners to navigate.
After the scary road we stopped to take note of where we were. (these signs were scattered all around the ring road and gave info on what was in the area to see and what facilities were near by)
After a few choice words we made it through and back on to tarmac and continued to the next town Egilsstaðir where Leigh took over to take on the last 60km. The road was fine, until we came to the last mountain pass. The road kept winding up and up, the fog and clouds came down to meet us, the corners got sharper and then there was the sinlge lane tunnel through the mountain. Now neither of us has ever seen anything quite like it before. It was like entering an old bunker, with wooden supports inside and the rock carved jaggedley above your head. There were three passing points inside the tunnel which thankfully we didn't have to use.
We also encountered for the first time lots of young kids (possibly about 15 - 16, packed into their parents cars racing each other round the mountain roads and through the remote villages which added another edge to the driving. We figuered that there probably wasnt't much else to do here though. The otherside was much less steep but we both agreed that we wouldn't venture out of this bay unless we really had to. One more journey over this mountain to get our was going to be enough, but to go over it again just to see some sights on the other side was just too much. We eventually made it to our hotel with the most stunning views over the bay.
Leigh cooked us some fajitas (very nice) and we settled in for a couple of chilled out days in our remote hotel.
(The view from my comfy bed! -L):
(And finanly some ghostly clouds creeping into the fyord!):
Weather: Started out quite nice, but got steadily wetter and more miserable as the day went on.
Distance Travelled: 416km
