Say that three times really fast!
Woke up in Höfn (stupid early again) feeling all the pains. I honestly thought my legs would be complaining a bit from the tramping up and down the mountain to see Svartifoss, but it was just my back that was screaming merry hell at me. C’est la vie, painkillers and heat packs for breakfast it is.
We were a bit slow getting moving this morning as we primarily had a long scenic drive along the southeastern coastline ahead of us. iHöfn, (pronounced sort of: hœpn) is an Icelandic fishing town in a really superb natural harbour near Hornafjörður fjord. The town is the second largest in southeastern Iceland so we took a bit of a drive through town before we head out.
The Seaman’s Monument on the Ósland promontory:
Dotted around the promontory were also monuments to each planet, this one was for the Sun:
In another nod to Höfn’s seafaring history, this gorgeous wooden narwhal tusk statue graces the seafront. 
Interesting fenceline in someone’s front yard…
We had a quick stop at a local handicrafts store; there are lots of lovely woollen textiles everywhere we go, and I’d be tempted to find something in colours I like, but I’m very conscious of two things – 1) EVERYTHING in Iceland is crazy expensive (these knitted sweaters start at around AUD$250), and 2) they’re so thick and warm, you’d never ever be able to wear one in Brisbane, not even on the coldest night of the year.
Languostine pattern: ‘langoustine’ is another term for a Norway lobster, which is a local delicacy… they’re like lobsters, only smaller.
On our way out of town, we decided to stop at the Vestrahorn Viking Village. It’s a recreated viking village that was purpose built to be a movie set which was slated to be filmed in 2010. It seems the movie was never made but the set is on the property of a local farmer, and he has wisely plonked a cafe on the property and turned it into a bit of a tourist attraction.
Given it was created for a movie, it is perhaps as not historically accurate as if it were built by archeologists (who knows?) but we walked around and found the place really interesting.
As we were getting ready to leave, two people wearing viking garb walked in, and I thought initially they must work there. On striking up a conversation, we found ourselves chatting with Cian and Tatiana, the recently stepped down Baron and Baroness of Coeur D’Ennui in Calontir, who happen to be friends with Sir Siridean, once King of Lochac. Small world.
If you are going to build yourself a viking village for a movie, this is definietely the place to do it.
We then went for a bit of a drive out to a NATO radar base to get a good view of the mountain… so much for that! Today Vestrahorn looked like this… slightly interesting at the base and then, nothing.
Vestrahorn has more commonly been captured looking like this:
So you’ll just have to imagine that is what is under the clouds. 🙂 Our trusty Jeep Renegade that is getting filthier by the minute.
The colours on the mountainside were quite stunning – the green, orange, yellow and red mosses and lichens look beautiful on the grey rocky outcrops.
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Even though we couldn’t see the top of the mountains, the scenery is still so dramatic.
Lunch stop for soup and snacks overlooking a craggy black beach.
This part of the coastal ring road that takes us from Hofn to Egilsstaðir is really bloody crazy. Uphill and down dale, plenty of blind corners and blind crests, loads of one-way bridges where who has the right of way is totally ambiguous, and so many people speeding even though there is literally no shoulder on which to pull over if you have a problem or any sort of incident.
There is nowhere to pull over and visibility sucks, yet people seem to want to travel 100kmph on these roads.
It also cuts through some seriously long tunnels – including Fáskrúðsfjarðargöng tunnel, which is about 6kms long.
Farm houses near Reyðarfjörður.
The drive was not that long but it was rather challenging in wet conditions on well maintained, but still shitty roads – it was actually snowing as we neared our destination.
We finally arrived at Egilsstaðir and decided to pop by the visitor’s centre to ask about somewhere to go for dinner to try some local food. Apparently, the entire area was once just one farm, which is now a guesthouse called, Gistihúsið with a restaurant, Eldhúsið, and a spa. The restaurant at the farmhouse is famous for creating their menu from all locally grown produce, which they also sell locally. It looked pretty flash and I was quietly confident that dinner there was probably going to cost more than our accommodation for the night – but the advertisements won us over.
The menu was extensive with plenty to choose from. For starters I ordered the scallops and yale ordered the smoked beets, for a main, I order the beef tenderloin and yale ordered the monkfish. All of it was absolutely delicious and beautifully presented. I took a grab off their menu so you could see the descriptions (and the prices.. oh my giddy aunt!)
yale ventured to try the beetroot cake for dessert, I tasted a bit, but it was far too chocolatey sweet for me.
The food was really good, but the hardest thing about this meal was choosing wine. They had wines from all over the world; Iceland not being known for it’s boutique wineries or anything… and with that comes the ‘Everything Is Imported Dickhead Tax’. I mean prices were just prohibitive. Check this one out – Lindemans Cawarra Shiraz/Cabernet, 187ml piccolo bottle for 1,590 ISK (approximately $19.55 AUD. $20 a glass!?! for a wine that I could (but wouldn’t, because I don’t drink cheap crap like this at home), pick up for $5.50 a 750ml bottle at Dan Murphy’s back home! And the Chilean, American and European wines were just as bad.
Even Qantas wouldn’t stoop to handing out wine this cheap and nasty, and yet here it is with a top-shelf price tag.
When the check came I was not at all surprised, but this probably explains why we are pretty much living on ham and salad wraps, cup-a-soups and fresh pasta. yale said he has figured out how Icelanders stay fit – they spend all their time hiking up to see waterfalls or down into ice caves and, they can’t afford to eat!
Dinner was undoubtably good, but nothing to write home about (she says, while writing home about it 😉 ). This probably just means I am either altogether too hard to please or my disappointment over the selections lingered a little too long. With an entree and a main each, one glass of very ordinary wine and yale’s dessert… you can do the conversion on our dinner for two in xe.com if you want – the Sticker Shock for shits and giggles is probably worth it.
After that, it was off to the Vinland Guesthouse to check in and crash. I’ve been keeping an eye on the aurorae forecasts – so far we have not been having much luck with way too much cloud cover to see anything. I am hoping it will clear over the next couple of days.
