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Clare
Clare

Day 6: Höfn to Seyðisfjörður

There wasn't a breakfast buffet at the place we were staying at last night (it was more of a guesthouse than a hotel), but there was a shared kitchen with things like coffee and cereal which people could help themselves to. We had been to the main supermarket in the town last night and bought some pastries of our own as well. It looked like it was going to be another dry day, so we were soon off on our way to make the most of it. Today was going to be one of our heavier days of driving, with nearly 200 miles to cover before we got to our base for the night.

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Our first stop was the Stokksnes headland, which is only about 10km outside of Höfn.

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A small road leads down off the Ring Road, onto private land. We had to pay 800 ISK each (about £5.50) to get a ticket and be able to park.

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It seemed worth it, because we knew it was a really scenic location.

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This big black mountain in the background is the Vestrahorn.

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It's only 454 metres high, but it looks a lot bigger and it really dominates the landscape here.

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The location has been used for filming, and what we were walking towards was a film set of a Viking village.

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It was quite a surreal place to wander around.

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Definitely an amazing location though.

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From outside the village we could see back to yesterday's glaciers :) 

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The ticket we'd bought allowed us to drive right to the end of the headland, from where we had a great view out to sea...

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...as well as more great views back towards the mountains.

 

The other remarkable thing about Stokksnes is that it is home to sand dunes made from black sand.

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Lots of them were just tiny little bumps like this...

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...with jet black sand.

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There was just time for a final look at the Vestrahorn...

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...and then we were on our way again, about to lose our view of the glaciers as we went through a tunnel in the mountains and emerged into Iceland's eastern region.

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Eastern Iceland is the remotest and least populated part of the country.

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Settlements are few and far between here, so we'd made sure to get a full tank of petrol yesterday.

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There aren't any absolute "must-see" sights in this region, but we had a day of stunning views ahead of us.

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We pulled over to take photos whenever we could find suitable parking places.

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This was at the Hvalnes nature reserve, where there is a huge lake inhabited by swans.

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They were staying well away from the tourists though, so we didn't get any photos!

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The eastern coastline of Iceland is home to a series of fjords, and we were about to start driving up and down them.

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It was getting a bit cloudier, but the views were still great.

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As we approached the village of Breiðdalsvík, we drove across a long bridge over the water.

The guidebook had said there was a turn-off at some point after here towards a waterfall, but we didn't manage to find it.

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Instead we left the Ring Road behind for a while and began to follow a smaller road around the coast.

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We found someone to take our photo again :) 

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Then we were back in the car and on our way once more. 

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We had this road virtually to ourselves.

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As we travelled further along, we could see a small island out to sea.

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Tim had to concentrate on the driving though, because the road soon turned from a normal tarmac road into a gravel one. Gravel roads are quite common in Iceland (even the Ring Road is gravel in parts) and pretty much the only bit of Icelandic I know is the "Malbik endar" road sign which announces that the paved road is coming to an end.

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The gravel road was replaced by a normal one again as we began to head inland.

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We were soon following a pretty steep road into the mountains.

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We stopped at a parking place with a good view :) 

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There was a series of tiny little waterfalls coming down the mountain here.

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Once we got over the top of the mountain, the landscape changed completely and became a lot softer.

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There were some beautiful autumn colours on the hillsides.

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We were now quite close to Egilsstaðir which is the main town in these parts. The Ring Road continues through it, but we needed to turn off onto route 93, a smaller road which leads over the mountains and down to the small town of Seyðisfjörður.

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The road was pretty steep, but when we got to the top of the pass there were some spectacular views back down.

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Eventually we began to descend and got our first glimpse of Seyðisfjörður.

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The name Seyðisfjörður might not ring any bells, but this is the town where the Icelandic TV series 'Trapped' was set. Part of the series was filmed here, with the rest being filmed in the village of Siglufjörður in northern Iceland. Seyðisfjörður is the town where the Norröna ferry featured in the series arrives from Denmark and the Faroe Islands once a week. It sails from Seyðisfjörður on Thursday mornings, so accommodation in the town is normally completely booked out on Wednesday nights. Luckily we were visiting on a Thursday evening, so hadn't had any problems finding a room for the night. And after approaching the town on this road, we can definitely see how it would be possible to get trapped here in the snow!

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We made one final stop at a parking place above the town...

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...because we'd caught sight of this beautiful waterfall from the road.

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This is Gufufoss, and I guess as Icelandic waterfalls go it isn't anything special (no mention in the guidebook!), but I was still pretty impressed :)

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We arrived in Seyðisfjörður and found our accommodation (the building in the picture, with the "studio guesthouse" sign).

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It's a small studio apartment, with two large beds, a kitchenette and dining table, so we were able to cook our own food tonight. I paid £105 for the night, so this is one of our better-value stays.

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The town itself is really pretty, with colourful wooden houses.

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It's surrounded by mountains on all sides.

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I got excited when we spotted the ferry terminal at the edge of the town :D 

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More scenic though was the town's beautiful little blue church :)

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It's a lovely place to stop for the night, after what has been yet another really scenic day in Iceland :) 

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Edited by Clare




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