A Nailbiting Drive
On Day 4 of our Ring Road tour, the receptionist of our Hofn hotel told us she wouldn’t drive to Egilstaddir in such bad conditions. Which was worrying, since that’s where we needed to go. However, we noticed a tour bus across the street, which she said was making the same drive. If the bus could do it, so could we, we decided.
As it turned out, the hotel receptionist came close to being proved right. At times, snow covered long stretches of road. Snow flurries kept blowing off the mountain towards the sea, making visibility non-existent. A couple of times we thought about turning back.
Djupivogur and the Arrow
By driving slowly in the middle of the roads to avoid the built up snow at the sides, we managed to make it to a town called Djupivogur. Shortly after, the same bus the receptionist back in Hofn had pointed out pulled into town.
Djupivogur. I’m not sure what the arrow is pointing to, unless it’s snow, falling.
The bus driver, who confirmed he was continuing on to Egilstaddir. He felt the roads would be improving because the snow ploughs were out, so we decided to carry on.
“Just go slowly and drive in the middle of the road,” he advised. Like I didn’t already know that!
We kind of had to leave anyway, because it was Easter Sunday and we wouldn’t have been able to book a room in Djupivogur.
Apparently, the town is famous for its thirty egg sculptures. I suspect the snow buried them, because the only sculpture we saw was a a rather fetching aquamarine arrow pointing up at the sky.
Vok Baths
After a few hair-raising skids on the road from Djupivogur to Egilstaddir, we arrived in fairly good time, about four and a half hours instead of the three hours it should have taken. Because of the weather conditions, we’d been unable to take our intended detour to the coastal town of Seydisfjordur.
Instead, with the roads around Egilstaddir now ploughed and the snowfall finished, we visited Vok Thermal Baths. the heat, steam and long soak were much needed after the stress of the drive. Walking out into the thermal pools was extremely cold, but in them, the temperature is about thirty degrees celsius (much more in one of them).
Several people jumped into the icy waters of the lagoon that the spa borders, then rose, shivering, and plunged into the hottest pool. We, however, did not.
Icelandic people love their thermal baths. If you visit, you should definitely make time to go to at least one. We went to a second towards the end of our holiday, but more on that in a later post.
A Walk Round an Athletics Track
Opposite our hotel in Egilstaddir, there was what we thought was a park. It was covered in snow, yet people were walking in it, so we decided to visit. However, the park turned out to be an athletics stadium. The snow had piled onto the field part, so any shotputters or long jumpers were unable to train, but the red track was snow free, although a bit damp. The stadium is overlooked by a cliff with two rather fun robot sculptures at the top.
When we returned to the hotel, we discovered that for the next day, when we would be driving to Acureyri “the Capital of the North,” more snow was expected, and freezing conditions, so back we went to checking road.is every few minutes.
Further Reading
Iceland (1): Land of Chess, Thrones and Soup
Iceland (2): Land of Diamonds, Glaciers and Snow
Iceland (3): Land of Horses, Viking Film Sets and Tourist Information Centres
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