We left Egilsstaðir in the morning and headed west across the top of the country. Our first stop was to be Dettifoss, Europe’s largest waterfall.
When we got to the road that holds Dettifoss only 30 kilometers away, we sped up, excited to see this amazing waterfall. When we turned into the road there were a few old SUV’s sitting on the side covered in snow and ice. We should have taken that as a warning.
We got stuck in a snowdrift. And I mean stuck. After 45 minutes of shoveling snow out from under the tires, me pushing while Sam spun the wheels – and repeating that every few feet – we finally made it out of there.
Glad to be alive, we headed to Mývatn for a short hike around the lava fields before lunch.
After lunch, we visited Goðafoss, a smaller (by Iceland standards, not anywhere else) waterfall that wasn’t blocked.
Our next stop was our final one, Akureyri, the second largest town in Iceland. The town sits on a fjord and looks like every Nordic fishing town fantasy, complete with a church on the hill and big flakes of falling snow.
At night we braved the cold, walking up to the church, down through the small shopping area, and out along Eyjafjörður’s edge.
