Iceland Day 5 — Diamond Circle (Part 1)

When I was planning the trip I tried to create a balance between driving and sightseeing. For example, if the previous day was all about covering a distance between south and north, then the next day should have less driving and more activities and sights to see. So, Day 5 was all about seeing and experiencing amazing sights and things of nature.

The Myvatn area is part of Iceland’s Diamond Circle, a close but less visited relative of the Golden Circle near Reykjavik. Because there is so much to see on the Diamond Circle, I gave it three days instead of one. Thus, our agenda for Day 5 included only three items: whale watching, horse riding, and “the usual”: picture taking at waterfalls.

Since booked our room in Myvatn for three nights, we didn’t need to pack and move that day. However, we had to wake up early to be on time for our whale watching tour. But first things first, we finally didn’t oversleep breakfast!

I remembered that I read in a guidebook that the breakfast at this guesthouse is something special. At first it looked pretty ordinary — cereal, milk, yogurt, deli (various sliced cheeses and meat) — until the owner offered us her specialty, the “lava bread” with smoked trout. Oh my god, I will miss that bread for the rest of my life! I think the owner could have made a fortune out of this bread if the recipe didn’t call for 24 hours of baking inside a geothermal hot spot.

Back to our whale watching tour. We didn’t expect much from it because we had been on one in Reykjavik three years ago and saw one whale (or, actually, one whale tail) at a distance of probably 200 meters. However, I read that there are more whales up north and we decided to give it a try. We planned to take a tour on an oak fishing boat — beautiful and romantic, but after our trip to Jökulsárlón glacier lagoon on a speedboat we wanted to repeat the experience. These boats are much faster than wooden fishing boats. So we paid extra for extra fun (just for reference, we paid $284 for two, while our original tour would have cost us $151).

We had to drive about 55 km (34 miles) north to Húsavík for our tour and we even made it on time.

For this type of tours we had to arrive 30 minutes early to have enough time to get into the safety overalls. These overalls automatically expand and convert to floating suits in case of drowning. To cheer us up, the guide told us that of course we are not going to drown because the suit is not going to help against the cold water of the bay for too long.

First we went to see some puffins near the Puffin Island. We tried to take a picture of a flying puffin, but they were too fast and I forgot to change the focusing method on our cameras from One Shot to AI Servo (which occurred to me only now as I was writing this blog). So all flying puffin pictures came out blurry.

After a short while the guide announced that it was time to “catch a bigger fish” and off we went to search for whales. We found one pretty fast. It was not in a rush to leave the area, circling around us as we circled around it. Once, it emerged only about 2-3 meters away from our boat and we could see how huge it was. Then the guide got tired of this whale and we went to find more. Over the whole tour, we saw five different whales that day, but they were all minke whales. Unfortunately, we haven’t seen any blue whales, or humpback whales, or killer whales. The whales are much slower than puffins, so we didn’t have any problems with blurry whale pictures. Here is a sample of the hundreds of whale pictures we took that day.

On the way back we stopped at an island with a lighthouse. The guide was serving us some sort of an herbal alcoholic drink (tasting of something like anise) from a local winemaker while the captain told a story about one of his relatives, a child who played near the edge of the cliff and fell into the water, but survived because he was able to spend the night in a cave under the cliff’s edge.

When we came back ashore, we asked the captain to take a picture of us together. Here it is.

After the tour we went to find something to eat and ended up in a cafe near the dock. We shared a sandwich and a piece of raspberry skyr cake, plus two cappuccinos. Total cost: $24. The weather was perfect and we enjoyed the sun and food.

It was nice to relax for a while, but we still needed to go to our next adventure — a horseback riding tour. We didn’t have a reservation but we knew the tour schedule and location, so we just showed up and asked if we can join the tour. Two teenage looking guides were a little surprised that we didn’t have a reservation but luckily they had two extra horses and accepted credit cards (tour cost for two: $156). They also looked kind of cautious when we told them that we didn’t have any horse riding experience. Well, I thought, how hard could it be? Not hard at all. Plus, I always wanted to try riding an Icelandic horse. They are small and sweet looking, like ponies. Although, one horse did try to eat the straps of my camera. When I freed the straps from her mouth she nonchalantly started to eat the bark off the wooden fence.

The riding was fun but I’m not looking forward to repeating it. The ride was bumpy and the horses had their own agenda. Alex got a dominant horse who wanted to be at the head of the group and mine liked to go in circles at the first opportunity. Of course, we were told how to “brake” and steer but we felt it was kind of wrong to deprive horses of their free will. In short, we were horse riding newbies.

We were riding to Ásbyrgi canyon, a beautiful place where Icelandic elves have established their capital. The canyon itself looks like a hoof and is said to have been formed under Odin horse’s foot when it touched the ground. At the arch of the hoof there is a small lake with clear water and a variety of waterfowl. It feels secluded and very unlike Iceland, mostly because it is small and surrounded by trees, a rare combination for Iceland.

On the way back, the guides offered to have our horses gallop for a short while so that we could experience the fastest gait of a horse. Unfortunately, I didn’t hear that offer, so when my horse suddenly went into gallop I was not ready and almost fell. Fortunately, after I finally regained my balance, I understood how to sync with the horse’s movements and it turned out that gallop is much smoother than the slower but bumpier allure.

The horse riding made us hungry but we were very far from any town or village. Luckily, we saw an N1 gas station nearby and we knew that there had to be something in the store. Icelandic gas stations, especially in rural areas, are places where locals socialize, eat, watch sports on TV, etc. Something reminiscent of an American bar but more family and kids friendly. At the counter we asked for the menu, which was pretty standard fast food variety plus fish. Each of us ordered fish and chips, apple cake, and coffee. Total cost: $45.

Our last destination for that day was Dettifoss waterfall, the largest by volume in Europe (the Rhine Falls are the largest by size). It is truly huge, and when you get close, it’s fierce and enormous. There are two ways to see it — from the west side and from the east side. It takes about an hour to get from one bank to the other, so we decided to cover the farther, east bank today and leave the closer, west bank for the following day. The east road was an F-road in all senses of the word. Almost all of it was corrugated as if by tank tracks, which made for a jittery ride with the insides of our car sounding like it was coming apart unless we drove 30 km/h or less. Finally, we figured out the secret: instead of driving slower, we drove even faster, and the drive actually got smoother.

It was about nine in the evening and the weather started getting worse. In particular, the now familiar Icelandic drizzle started, which we joked was due to the fact that Alex put on his gray rain jacket. After all, the statistics was perfectly clear by now: any time he put on his gray rain jacket it rained, and any time he put on his black rain jacket it didn’t.

There was only one other car at the parking lot near Dettifoss and it was leaving. So we had the waterfall for ourselves. The hike was short but the trail was slippery and sometimes steep. We had some fun taking pictures of ourselves sitting on the rocks near the waterfall.

The rain intensified but we were not done yet. We wanted to hike 1km up the river to Selfoss waterfall. It is not as big as Dettifoss but very picturesque. The trail was marked, but mid-hike we had to climb or go around big rocks, and then walk along a path that was quickly turning into mud as the rain went on. By the time we got to Selfoss we were quite wet and I started to fear for my camera.

I made just a couple of shots and told Alex that we had to go back. Of course, Alex wanted to go further to reach the second viewpoint. He was arguing that we might miss a nice view. I was arguing that my camera may not survive the second wet bath and the view up the river might not be as good. Thankfully, he listened and we went back. When we got to our car we were soaked. Even my waterproof jacket. The much-praised the NorthFace brand didn’t pass the test of the Icelandic rain. Fortunately, we had a spare set of clothes which we were able to change into in the parking lot restroom. By the way, Iceland’s public restrooms are very clean, especially considering the remote locations of many of them. The one at Dettifoss’ east bank even had a baby changing table. Really, even though there are no towns, no villages, no farms near Dettifoss. It is a private property, but the owners don’t charge any money (at least not yet), and it is also part of a national park. Maybe the park rangers clean them? Anyway, we changed into dry clothes, turned on seat heating and drove off. The rain, fog, poor visibility and the corrugated dirt road surface soon gave way to a nice paved, dry road and a clear view of the midnight sky as we finally got back to our guesthouse.

Here is the map of the places we visited on Day 5.