Day 23 - Akureyri to Akranes

Some locals in Akureyri

I had time this morning to do a bit of exploring of the town early – the city centre on foot then a bit further afield by car. Not much open of course, but it is a nice looking place. Plenty of activities here and around if I had time to hang around and do them.


Back at the hostel I showered and packed and hit the road at about 10:15am. The plan was to be back in Akranes tonight, which is where I stayed on my first night here. This necessarily meant that I would be going over some of the same roads as yesterday for a while, but at least I was able to see them from a perspective that I missed in the rear view mirror. Plus I made a couple of detours down side roads to keep things interesting.

No tunnels or rainbows today, but instead there were views of a glacier, windswept highlands of moss covered rocks interspersed with scattered small shallow lakes (lakettes?), an old volcano cone, a troll garden, and an encounter with a cute dog.

The dog's party trick!

The latter occurred when I stopped to look at a small church that was right next door to a farm house. Actually it seemed to be between the farm house and the farm sheds, not that I saw any people about. But as I approached the church fence this dog, barely more than a pup really, snuck under the house fence and came racing over for a pat. Or three, or four. I was careful not to let him into the churchyard in case he wasn’t meant to be there but he just hared off and came around the gap between the end of the church fence and the house fence. He was obviously not to be dismissed so easily! His party trick was doing somersaults to try and catch his own tail, which he was eventually successful in doing. As I walked back to my car he just trotted back to and under the house fence – I guess he is used to seeing strangers come and go. (Though I wouldn’t have thought there would be too many travellers on the narrow gravel road I was on at the time).

And were you hoping for more on the troll garden? It was a small walk with some troll statues and some nicely done story boards containing excerpts from local legends about trolls. The adjacent waterfalls (which were very nice) are supposed to contain rocks that are in fact trolls who turned to stone.

Old vocano cone

Otherwise the scenery was more beautiful variations on the same spectacular themes. The day’s drive, including rest stops, took about 9 hours and 134 photos (including a few of the dog!).