we set of over the mountain pass (did we mention its the highest in Iceland at just under 800m?) It wasn't actually too bad going in the other direction.
Here is the tunnel at the top of the pass.
And the view the other side. That's the Aluminium smelter you can see in the distance.
It was more distirbing the first time over as we didn't know what was around the next uphill corner and the fog didn't help either.
We drove past the three villages that we'd passed on the way in, and the new controversial Aluminium smelting factory (it was massive) then continued around the easten fjords towards the south coast. We were able to cut through one peninsular as it hat had a 6000m tunnel linking two fjords, This was a long tunnel!
We had to negotiate about 8 fjords in total, Some took longer than others as we had to drive all the way round the inside of them. As you can imagine the scenery was amazing. Scenery normally varies somewhere between amazing and breathtaking here!
We stopped of a few off times to take some photos and get some fresh air. One stop occured because we noticed a coach had pulled over and lots of tourist were out taking pictures so we wanted to investigate. This proved to be a most specactular stop. We wandered towards the sound of the sea over a large dune of perfectly smooth black pebbles.
Whilst Anna was collecting stones, I walked towards the sea to take more pictures.
As my camera case was blowing in the wind, I unattached it from the camera where it is usually safe and I stuffed it up my tshirt to stop it getting in the way. As I was snapping away I noticed something blowing towards the rough sea. So I ran after case towards the sea just grabbing it seconds before the next big wave crashed down and might have washed it away. Here you can see the foot prints in the pebbles of from my mad dash.
The next wave that came in, just came up to where my footprints ended.
We stayed here a little while and took lots (and lots) of pictures of this area.
They must be mad living underneath that! (Above that farm, the slopes of the moutain are covered with loose stones, shingle and boulders all ready to crash down - A):
This is a big one! Click it to see it properly:
We drove a little further up the road to a calm bay with hundreds of swans in it, feeding and calling each other.
These Swans migrate to England in the winter and some to a place quite near home that we visited earlier in the year. We eventually continued on around the last couple of fjords.
On this journey we had to negotiate a couple of lambs feeding from there mum in the middle of the road and a few more dust roads. Thankfully these hopefully were going to be the last dust roads we had to drive on but they threw up one last obsticle.
We finally got around the last fjord then the final peninsula had a tunnel through it. Once we were through and our eyes had readjusted, we could just make out the glaciers in the distance. I think this sight was more breathtaking then amazing!
Here's some of our first (of many) glacier tounge (tougne is the name given to the end of the glacer where is spills down the mountain edge - A) pictures.
We eventually found our 5th hotel (4th Edda) despite some dud instructions. We noticed some rooms in the the hotel would have views over the glaciers. Ok so our room was out of range of the free wireless access BUT we did get a room with glacier and sea views.
After dropping our luggage off in the room we popped into the local town (Hofn) where they also had a mini festival about to start for Labour weekend. I had my first hot dog from the petrol station which tasted really good. The Icelandics love their hot dogs and its the equivilant to our McDonalnds. You find them at every petrol station and are their cheap fast food. Just what I fancied!
We then booked a ride up one of the glaciers in a jeep to do a bit of snowmobiling on it for the next day :o)
Another picture taken in the Hofn (south east) area.
And finaly the view from our room.
Weather: Sunny with some clouds
Distance Tarvelled: 297 km
