Iceland Day 4 – Icebergs, Rugged Eastern Fjords

Jokulsarlon is a glacier fed lagoon that has the unique feature of the glacier carving creating a lagoon filled with icebergs that run through a 100m passage to the nearby sea interspersed by a handful of playful seals who call this place home. We watch in awe as a few of these truck size icebergs crash into each other on the out flow – creating a traffic pileup as the must bed on the shallow outlet too heavy to be carried by the fierce current.

The northern lights dance again this night and we wake to a crystal clear sky with full views of the icecap, glacier and magnificent sunrise. We explore the nearby beach coffee in hand where the icebergs wash up small and eroded away but crystal clear in beauty inspiring forms. This is hands down one of the most magnificent things either of us have witnessed.

The road takes us north and we call in at horn to charge up and take a break and a bite. We get a tip off about a secluded hotsping and an hour later sees us flying up the coast road in glorious sunshine to a bathtub overlooking the sea with steaming waters just south of Djupivogur – another quaint little hamlet perched at the southern end of the reugged eastern fjords. The hotspring is  the definition of perfect – just the two of us in this wild untamed scene with a wondrous place to relax (sorry the superlatives don’t do it justice). We strip naked and bask in the warm water and sunshine. Blissful.

We’re at the southern edge of the eastern fjords – a hand full of small fishing villages and farms that thread their way around some finger inlets of fjords and a backdroped by thousand metre snowcapped cliffs and mountains – and as you guessed by now that are all teeming with waterfalls. Is this not valhalla? I wonder what the viking lords who settled here from Norway in the mid 11th century thought….

Town by town we pass as the hills roll by find our selves fatigued and in need of a coffee. We pull over on the side of the road and nap instead. One of the best naps Ive ever had as its a soothing place to rest with the sounds of gulls and waves crashing down below against the cliffs. We wake and hit some coffee before soon-finding our selves heading back inland to make nightfall just past the crossroad town of Egilsstadir to camp the night by ourselves again in a beautiful spot by Lagafljot lake. We arrive jus as the sun calls it time on the day to few wispy orange glows on the far horizon.