National Highway 1—The Ring Road

Most of the trip so far has been on what is usually called “The Ring Road”—National Highway 1, which encircles the main part of Iceland, leaving out the parts that stick out in one direction or another.  The “Golden Circle” around Þingvellir, Geysir, and Gullfoss isn’t on Highway 1, but everything else to this point has been.

Until today, the driving has been nothing very complex…long, straight stretches of two-lane blacktop (a lot like many Western US states), enlivened mostly by the frequent advent of one-lane bridges.  There are rules about these bridges—basically, whoever gets to it first gets to cross while the other car waits.  Not sure this would work well in the US, but since we seem to meet about 50 vehicles a day, it isn’t much of an issue here.  We have waited once for another car to cross, we have had the right-of-way twice, every other time we’ve been the only car in sight.

But today we hit the coast.  Now the driving is a lot like US 1 in California, though the drop on the seaward side isn’t as precipitous.  But the road is very curvy, there are blind curves, blind hills, blind hills that curve…and random long stretches where the blacktop vanishes and you have packed gravel.  On the country’s MAIN ROAD.  Then, at one point, it flings itself inland and up over Breiðdalsheiði (BREITH-dahls-high-thee) (“Broad-valley Heights”), with all the switchbacks of a Colorado high-country road.  Two days ago, this part of the road was closed by snow, and we would have had to take the long way round—in and out of 3 more fjords.  As we made the turn to go over the mountains, the sign said “Sometimes impassable”.  Not.  Helpful.



As should now be obvious, the road was perfectly clear all the way.
We don’t seem to have gotten many photos of the twisty coastline today, but we’ll likely have more chances, possibly tomorrow.  We did get a couple in the fishing town of Höfn (HUHP’n):



A pondfull of Whooping Swans (which are everywhere!):



An Arctic Tern nesting site (they dive-bomb you…note attacking tern in 1st pic):



A few dozen Eiders:



A Whimbrell, a handsome Snipe, and some Pink-footed Geese. Iceland is a great place to hunt snipes, they are everywhere! SO, be sure to bring a big paper bag when you come to Iceland!!



And a spiffy look back at last night’s lodging by the glacier, from Höfn, 30 minutes away:



I think we’re done glaciers and waterfalls, at least for a few days.  Tomorrow we head up to Lake Mývatn (MEE-vat’n) for what is supposed to be masses of birdlife, plus interesting volcanic terrain.  And maybe some whale-watching (though not on the lake!).