Day 5 – Entering the North 🇮🇸

This morning we woke up and decided to try some Icelandic food, so after a shower in water that was at least 1000°, we headed to the local N1 for a hotdog – the best way to start the day. They’re topped with raw white onions and crispy fried onions, ketchup and a sweet brown mustard called Pylsusinnep – this sauce is the DB and we will definitely be using our remaining weight limit to bring plenty of bottles home 🌭

After gobbling on our sausage, we drove to our first stop of the day – Stuðlagil Canyon. Unfortunately we read the AllTrails wrong, and ended up in the campsite car park rather than the canyon car park, which happened to be on the other side of the canyon.. so it was back in the van to find the correct car park. By this point the beautiful weather we had been having had decided to leave, and the wind and rain had arrived. The wind was so bad that within minutes my face was brown from all the dust that had been blown into it. It was even stuck to our teeth! After battling the elements we finally arrived at the canyon – The basalt columns tower over a turquoise glacial river, making it one of the most stunning places we’ve been. We decided to climb down to the bottom using a rope that someone had kindly installed, and we were rewarded with a much more spectacular perspective.

As we arrived back to the van, the wind had died down and blue sky was peeking through the clouds, which meant we should have had a glorious drive to Dettifoss. The majority of the drive was glorious, but we decided to do the East side of the falls as you get much closer to it. The road leading to this side however was one of the worst roads we have driven on, and I thank God for a decent pelvic floor. It was 30km of unmaintained gravel, boulders, volcanic rock and anything else you can think of. Although we did make it (about 30 mins extra to what Google Maps says) the van isn’t built for speed on these types of roads, so we were left in the dust of the Dacia Dusters that flew past. We eventually got to the car park and began the walk to the falls. As it’s one of the most powerful in Europe, we could hear it way before we could see it. The thunderous fall has an average water flow of 193 meters cubed per second (6,186 cubic feet). It is 100 meters (330 feet) wide and plummets 45 meters (150 feet) down. It really is mind blowing.

After visiting Dettifoss, we decided to extend the walk and head to the often overlooked Selfoss. There is a town in the South also called Selfoss which we nearly drove all the way to thinking it was the waterfall! The walk involves a bit of clambering over boulders but it’s nothing too strenuous, and again we were rewarding with another amazing waterfall.

Walking back to the van we had one thing on our mind.. we had to tackle that road again. Luckily it seemed slightly easier on the way back, but still not one we want to drive on again any time soon. As we’ve done so much walking on this trip we decided we were due some relaxation, so headed to Mývatn Nature Baths, the Northern equivalent to the blue lagoon. Floating around in hot water, with mountains in the distance and beverage in hand.. what more could you want. It was the perfect end to the day, and luckily our planned home for the night was only 5 minutes way.