The last few days have been exhausting. Great, but exhausting. We’ve covered a lot of kilometres and seen a lot of breathtaking things, but we’ve been on the go physically and mentally the whole time. Today was the opportunity in our Iceland itinerary to have a slow day.
We only needed to move 40km or so around the peninsula to Husavík, a little fishing village of a few thousand people. In terms of population size, compared to where we stayed last night, whatever the population of Husavík is – that is the difference. We started by heading to the nearby Ásbyrgi Canyon for what proved to be such a small hike that Justine refused to get in the car at the end and instead headed off down the road to stretch her legs and we picked her up a K or two down the way.
We then recrossed one of the many one-lane suspension bridges that we have made a habit of crossing and recrossing on this loop and headed back down the gravel road to Dettifoss – the most powerful waterfall in all of Europe. On the way we came across some wild horses on the road. I’m not really a horse person, but they are impressive animals, and these ones with their shaggy manes and attitude galloped along with us for a few hundred metres, which even I will concede was pretty cool.
Dettifoss itself is an impressive waterfall, no doubt about it. It’s on the edge of the lunar, dead landscape we drove through yesterday, and it is a stark and beautiful place. The waterfall itself is eye catching.
However, it’s the canyon below it that I found myself drawn to. It’s figuratively out of this world – so much so that it has been used as an alien landscape in movies, and in the 1960s NASA even did acclimatisation training for their moon landing astronauts in the region. I think it might be my new favourite place in the world.
From there, aside from a brief stop to fly the drone to get some aerial shots of the landscape and road, we pushed through to Husavík by 3pm, topping out at 66.20 degrees north as we came over the top of the peninsula.
Husavík is a picturesque village, and we found great food at a cafe in town – so good we are off back there for dinner in a few minutes. We then took it easy. Justine and mum wandered around looking for shops (none apparently), while the kids and I went 5 mins back up the road to a beach Lauren liked the look of, and we made dams and piles of stones. 😄
Everything in one place 