Ísland Háskólablogg: Góða Ferð!

The day I had been looking forward to every since about a couple weeks into getting to Iceland was the day I get to rent a car with a couple of my friends and drive all around Iceland. Ever since I read an article of a group that drove all the way around the "ring road" (the main highway) I really wanted to get to do the same thing. After much planning and car rental business searching, we rented a car from Sixt Car Rental on Monday, May 18. We had to go with Sixt because the majority of the car rental places in Iceland offer mainly Manuals, and being I was going to do most of the driving I needed an Automatic. One of my biggest causes of stress leading up to the trip was the condition of the roads. Back in mid-March, one of my good friends from Canada set out to drive around the ring road with her boyfriend. They went clockwise, starting from Reykjavík and they almost made it all the way around when she looked away from the road for a split second and slipped off the road, rolling the car and breaking her collarbone. Her boyfriend had to flag down an old couple that passed them on the road and get them to call an ambulance. She said it was really her own fault for looking away for a second too long but still I realized that something like that could happen to anyone, especially if the roads are bad. So, the days leading up to the trip, we kept checking road.is for updates on the statuses of the roads. Yes, even in late April, there is still ice and snow on some roads in Iceland. Go figure. For the most part they were good, with the exception of the West Fjords which are almost never ideal. But, spoiler alert, we made it okay without any accidents, and I am so thankful we did. I had a couple of bad scares during the drive which I will elaborate on more, but I am so happy we made it all the way around and it's quite an accomplishment to have under your belt.

Tuesday May 19: Me, Veronica, and Emily leave at 7 a.m. from Gamli Garður to begin our trip around the world (of Iceland). We stocked up on fruit, peanut butter, bread, and coke before heading out early Tuesday morning. Our plan was to head along the south coast like we did on our first trip (us + Anthony) and power through as much as we could and then find a nice town where we could pull into a gas station and sleep in the car. Since most of us are approaching the end of our stay in Iceland, money has seemed to disappear quite quickly, thus being are reasoning for sleeping in the car for the first two nights.

This is the route of Day One. We planned on staying in Reyðarfjörður but we got there around 7 and we wanted to use the community pool so mainly to use their showers, but we asked a local and he told us to go to the next town, Eskifjörður and use their pool. After some debate we decide to drive about 20 minutes to that town only to arrive at 7:50 pm and to find out the pool closes at 8. There wasn't much in both these fishing towns so we decided to press onward even further to Egilsstaðir which was the closest town on the East coast to a suburb. It was quite nice actually and we ended up sleeping in the gas station parking lot. I put my wet socks and shoes underneath the car overnight only to wake up and find my socks missing because it was so windy during the night. The car was shaking every 30 seconds because of the strong winds and i was parked perpendicular to it which didn't help any. My shoes were super dry though which was a plus. We spent a total of about 14 hours traveling in the car.

Anyways here are some pictures documenting the chronology of our trip.

Emily pumping herself up for the adventure that awaits us.

Me getting ready to deal with two girls for 6 days lol

Ronni throwing up the deuces

Scenery as soon as we got out of the city (we got lost just like last time)

We wait almost two months after our first trip and there's still snow haha

Here you can barely see the condition of the road. Huge snow clearing vehicles drive along these roads all throughout the day (thank goodness) but even still there are only two tire lanes you can drive in without chugging through slush and constantly having your car being pulled to either side.

More through-the-windshield pics haha

The town of Selfoss, I believe

Big ol' mountain with icy roads and typical Iceland clouds

Our first stop of the trip. On road 242 there is a pool and apparently if you park your car and take a 15 minute hike you can walk on the Vatnajökull glacier. We just decided to take a stroll.

The interesting snow/ash combo looks very much like ground up Oreo's

Me deciding the best way to scale this Oreo colored mountain/hill.

Frozen water on ash

Ronni and Emily doing their best to get tetanus on the first day of the trip haha

The pool! There was one car parked in front of the building but the doors were locked...

Seeing this kind of sunlight early in the morning through Iceland's clouds invigorates me

Tiny elf house at Vík

Beautiful Vík. No snow here.

Vik mountainside in the sunlight.

Gift shop

Waterfall in Kirkjubæjarklaustur

I was in a scaling type of mood for the first day of this trip

Taking a swig. It was cold and delicious

Passed by some rogue sheep while driving so I slammed on the brakes and Emily and Veronica took some pictures before they scampered away

This area might have been my favorite out of the whole trip. This was at Jökulsárlón (Glacial Lagoon) but instead of turning left and into to the actual Glacier Lagoon with huge chunks of floating glacier, we turned right towards the coast of discovered huge chunks of floating glacier in the ocean and on the beach. Absolutely beautiful, so cool, and so much fun to climb on. So much fun I pushed my luck too hard and ended up slipping off one when the waves hit and completely soaked my only pair of shoes.

We came prepared this time and brought along carrots for the Icelandic horses to chow down on.

Emily resting in the backseat

The view of the coast for the majority of our drive up to Reyðarfjörður. Weaving around the East coast of Iceland. Very pretty.

Look closely, these are reindeer which we saw quite a bit of on the drive

Hanging out on old ships in one of the small towns before Reyðarfjörður. There were handcraft and small trinket stores in almost every town we went through, but they were only open on Tuesday and Fridays for a couple of hours. Reykjavik and Akureyri is the only town with any stores open past 5 (in the winter). Makes it difficult for travelers not traveling in the summer.