Saturday, May 22, 2021: Day 5 of our 12-day drive around Iceland road-trip. The weather today was cloudy and cool with a prediction of snow in the afternoon. We departed Laugarbakki around 9AM and headed East on Iceland’s ring road (road 1) towards the town of Akureyri (unofficialcapital of North Iceland”). Along the way we took a 32 mile gravel road detour North through the Vatnsnes peninsula and stopped to make a short hike to view the Hvitserkur basalt stack (rock formations)
We worked our way past the ubiquitous sheep and horse farms and connected back with the ring road to continue our journey East. We stopped for fuel and to wash the road dirt from the car in to village of Blönduós, at the mouth of the glacial river Blanda. Many of the gas stations here have free self-service car wash areas.
As if on cue, it started snowing as we started our assent up the mountain pass. The snow continued until we reached our destination in Akureyri, the second most populous city in Iceland (15,000). We checked in to our hotel (Iceland Air Hotel Akureyri) and will spent the day exploring the city, including a visit to Bakariid Vid Bruna bakery for spice bread (thank you Michelle Kilkenny for the tip on this bakery & the amazing spice bread) and making full use of the hotel’s happy hour specials.
We depart tomorrow for hot springs and waterfalls of the Myvatn region with a detour to Husavik. This will take us through the newly completed 5 mile long Vaðlaheiðargöng toll tunnel.
