Iceland 2026 – The North
Day 7 – Egilsstaðir to Mývatn
On Saturday we drove from Egilsstaðir to Mývatn. Along the way we stopped at several waterfalls: Rjukandafoss, Selfoss, and Detifoss. Before the first waterfall, we pulled off at some random gorge for Pete to fly his drone. We also went to the famous Stuðlagil Canyon, but decided not to do the long hike to the bottom.
As we approached Myvatn, we stopped at the Hverir geothermal vents. They were something else, a hell on earth kind of landscape. And they stank of sulfur!
After we checked into our lodge, we had dinner at the Vogafjos farm resort’s restaurant. It’s a working dairy farm, and their homemade cheese is incredible! I had the slow cooked lamb shank, and Pete had a cheeseburger. When we went to pet the cows later, I was really glad I hadn’t eaten one!
Day 8 – Second Night in Mývatn
Sunday was my birding day! Mývatn is a nice hotspot and I got almost all of my target species. We also made friends with some beautiful horses at one of the stops.
Other than birding, we also visited a few local spots:
Grjótagjá Cave – where I touched the water and Pete yelled at me for doing so because it said “no bathing” 
Hverfjall – a volcano that exploded 2500 years ago and left behind a crater. It was a 1-2 hour hike. We didn’t do it but Pete flew over the rim and got some video.
Krafla Geothermal Area – there’s a geothermal power station here.
Leirhnjúkur – a long hike we didn’t do, but Pete flew and filmed it
Viti Crater – an easy walk from the parking lot to a gorgeous blue lake. I climbed to the top. If you listen to the video here, you can hear how much I was panting from the walk!
Dimmuborgir – a hike with lava formations
Skútustaðir Pseudocraters – grassy “craters” formed when boiling lava flowed over the marshlands.
Day 9 – Mývatn to Siglufjörður
Somewhere between Mývatn and Siglufjörður we got lost. I mean, we made it to both sides of Goðafoss, the waterfall you see here. While there, we (mostly) maneuvered our way around yet another huge tour bus full of people. We stopped for lunch in Akureyri, the “capital of the north” – and actually saw stoplights again.
But then we ended up on a looooong gravel road to nowhere. You can see here how dirty the rental car got in the process. We went through two tunnels – read this carefully – that are bi-directional yet one lane. One side has to pull over if they see headlights coming from the other direction. One of those tunnels was about 5km long, but the other was fairly short. Then we ended up driving around the Siglufjörður fjord where the road kept turning to gravel in places where the asphalt had been washed out. And Iceland isn’t big on guard rails.
But finally we got to our stay for the night. Helga met us at the front door. We were chatting and she said she had gone to university in Florida before coming back to Reykjavik and meeting her husband. One guess where she went? FIT in Melbourne! She said she has guests from the US all the time but has never had someone from Melbourne. She got her degree in Aviation Psychology and then worked in recruiting and training when she returned to Iceland. What a small world.
Day 10 – Siglufjörður to Stykkishólmur
On Tuesday we drove back out on the scary road out of Siglufjörður. We knew this was going to be a lot of driving (5 hours!), so we only had planned one stop: Hofsós. We had originally intended to go to their infinity pool, but the weather was bad and with Pete’s developing bronchitis, it wasn’t a good idea. We just drove through the town and went to the the turf church there. Along the way later we stopped at a different turf church.
When we arrived in Stykkishólmur. it was pouring rain and very windy, but we did see a beautiful double-rainbow out of our cottage window. We went to dinner and then went back to our rental, where it was warm and dry. Honestly, it was really nice to have some normal downtime to just watch television and relax. The last photos in this group are from Stykkishólmur the next morning.