Another full day had us heading towards Jókulsárgljúfur National Park. Back on Route 1 we found a nice pullover in the long stretch between Egilsstaðir and Route 864 where the black winding road looked really nice against the mostly black surrounding landscape. It was apparent many others had also enjoyed this lookout as the parking area had a collection of at least 50 cairns. Cairns are rock piles you see throughout Iceland, some in the strangest spots. Apparently they used to be used a signposts for locations and routes. Now, locals and tourists alike create piles of rocks all over the stark land. Some of them are very short and disorganized. Others are tall and very structured. Although we often went for 10 to 20 minutes without seeing a car, we rarely travelled for more than a minute without see a cairn. We often wondered how long some of the cairns had stood.
When we got to Route 864, we turned North towards the park and started a rather fun drive up to our first stop. At this point I had become quick comfortable with driving on loose gravel roads and really started enjoying it. There's just something about the feel of the gravel hitting the car and swerving to avoid the biggest ruts that made the adventure that much funner. After a good 30 minutes driving in the stuff we reached our first stop near Dettifoss (falls). More volume of water falls over Dettifoss than any falls in Europe but because it is relatively short and the water is filled with sediment, it isn't Iceland's prettiest. However, I was still pretty impressed.
From Dettifoss we did some short walking and a short drive to see a few more falls, Selfoss and Hafrailsfoss. The canyons surrounding the falls are also pretty dramatic.
After leaving the falls we drove to the northern end of the park to see Asbyrgi. This area of the park is filled with numerous trails so we decided to follow one that did a small circle around the canyon. This canyon is sometimes billed as Iceland's Grand Canyon" but from this person who has seen THE Grand Canyon in Arizona on multiple occasions, Asbyrgi isn't even close. Although a nice departure from most Icelandic landscapes as it has a good amount of green, the walls of the canyon a relatively featureless. It is certainly worth a trip if you are in the area but if you skip it I don't think you'd regret it.
From Asbyrygi we headed out on Route 85 towards the North coast and Husavík. The drive was nice but fairly featureless. This would be northernmost part of our journey but would leave us about 40km short of the Arctic Circle. We briefly considered a flight to Grimsey so we could step inside the Arctic Circle but reconsidered when we found out the flights were limited and there really isn't a good marker for the spot. Instead I gazed into the distance and held off the journey to the Arctic for a future trip to Norway? Husavík was a decent size town by Icelandic standards but we really didn't spend too much time checking it out. We only stopped for a short lunch at restaurant attached to local gas station. From the window of the gas station we could see the somewhat famous Icelandic Phallogical Museum but never considered entering it.
Next up was an early check in at our hotel, Narfastaðir in Reykjadalur. Another typical farmhouse in a nice location between Husavík, Akureyri and Lake Myvatn. After checking in and relaxing a bit we headed out for Akureyri. Since we were going to be heading back eastward to check out the Lake Myvatn area we thought it best to check out Akureyri today rather than try to fit it in the next day. The drive in to Akureyri was quite nice and the town was the most developed since Reykjavík. We set about exploring the city on foot and found it fairly accessible. We didn't do much significant other than check out a church and catch part of girls soccer game. We didn't realize how significant this game was until we caught highlights on TV later that night and on future nights of trip. Perhaps we should have stuck around a little longer. Having had our fill of Akureyri we headed back East to the hotel.
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