Massachusetts - Off to Newfoundland

We are off on another adventure - this time to Canada's Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland.

We actually scheduled this trip for 2018, but the trip was put on hold. Now with a new trailer, we are ready to explore.

Our general itinerary includes:

• Letterboxing with friends at an event in New Hampshire.
• Seeing the easternmost point in the United States. Do you know where that is?

picture taken by Barbara's mother in 1997

• Touring Franklin Roosevelt's summer place on Campobello Island, New Brunswick Canada.
• Driving and hiking the Cabot Trail on Cape Breton Island in northern Nova Scotia. We visited there back in 2000 and liked it so much we wanted to go back. 

Cabot Trail 2000

• Taking a 7-hour ferry to Newfoundland - a new province for us!

• Spending 4 weeks exploring Newfoundland with hikes, boat tours, historic places, lighthouses, wildlife, seafood and lots more. We should get to the easternmost point of Canada, too. There might be a little redundancy for Bill who just saw fishing villages, puffins, and icebergs in Iceland with Carrie, but there are plenty of new things to see and explore. Maybe we'll get to this spot.

Gros Morne National Park, Newfoundland
image from the web

• Taking the ferry back.

• And ending the trip with another letterboxing event.

Iceland - Reykjavík

On our last day in Iceland, we explored Reykjavík.

We visited Hallgrímskirkja, the cathedral inspired by Svartifoss waterfall. The tower was closed, but we walked around inside and outside.

 The Einar Jónsson Sculpture Garden was across the street, so we walked through it.

We peeked in Harpa, which is a concert hall and conference center.

For lunch, we went to Messin. We had Arctic char, pan fried with a tasty sauce.

We also visited the National Museum of Iceland, which has artifacts from Iceland’s history.

After a walk through the nearby Hljómskálagarður park, we drove back to the airport to return our rental car, finish off our food, and board our return flight. It was a memorable trip.

Iceland - Ring Road northwest

Our bed-and-breakfast actually included breakfast this morning, which is our only overnight to do so. And what a breakfast - 3 homemade breads, 2 homemade jams, smoked trout, Icelandic butter, Icelandic cream cheese, meat slices and pâté from the farm’s sheep, cucumber slices, and hard-boiled egg slices. The picture is after everyone ate, so it looked even better before we started. 

Iceland has several western peninsulas that are beautiful, but we didn't have time to see them. Today was our longest drive (over 6 hours) to just north of Reykjavík but we did see a few more waterfalls.

The 41-foot-high 650-foot-wide Hraunfossar waterfall is formed by seeps coming out of the edge of a lava field.

Nearby is the 30-foot-high 35-foot-wide Barnafoss gorge and waterfall.

Further south is the 649-foot-high 350-foot-wide Glymur waterfall. It was thought to be the highest waterfall in Iceland, but a higher one was recently discovered. The 4-mile round-trip hike to see it is more challenging than I realized, with steep sections, drop-offs, and a stream crossing over a log. Carrie was a great sport.

crossing the stream - the log is longer than it appears in the picture!

Glymur

Iceland - Ring Road north

We booked an 8:30 boat tour from Húsavík to see whales and puffins, so no time for the geothermal pool in the morning. On the boat, we donned the provided 1-piece suit over our coats. The boat went first to an island with many puffins, then went looking for whales. We saw a humpback whale surface a number of times, then moved to a different location and briefly saw a harbor porpoise. We didn’t have a high-end camera and lens like many of the passengers, so don't have the best pictures.

It's a 45-minute drive to Ásbyrgi canyon, but we did it, and did the short hike at the base by the pond and a longer hike along the base and top of one of the sides. It looks like Þingvellir and tectonic plates, but the ranger said no, the cliffs were formed by the river. 

Next was the 37-foot-high 520-foot-wide horseshoe-shaped Goðafoss waterfall. The west side was closed for renovations, but views were good from the east side. The flow was high, so water went horizontally before dropping vertically.

The only toll on the Ring Road is a tunnel east of Akureyri. We drove an extra 15 minutes over the mountain to avoid the ISK 1500 toll.

Dinner was at Noa Seafood in Akureyri. We both had the catch of the day, which was spotted wolf fish in a very tasty sauce.

Iceland - Ring Road northeast

We needed ice for the cooler. An N1 gas station didn’t sell ice but was kind enough to give us some.

Our first stop is the 305-foot-high 35-foot-wide stair-step Rjúkandi waterfall. It's visible from the road, but a short walk gives a better view.

Next is the 167-foot-high 560-foot-wide Dettifoss waterfall, one of the most powerful in Europe. Route 864 on the east side wasn't open, so we approached from Route 862 on the west side.

Just upstream from Dettifoss is the 44-foot-high 1700-foot-wide horseshoe-shaped Selfoss waterfall.

While eating lunch at a picnic table, we saw a father and daughter from Richmond VA we met the first night, so chatted with them. They are doing a similar trip. We also picked up a hitch-hiker leaving Dettifoss who was born in France, so Carrie chatted with her a bit in French.

The Krafla caldera is north of the Ring Road and has a geothermal power plant, lava fields, and the Viti crater. The power plant is Iceland's largest, 60MW. We skipped the lava fields but saw the bright blue-green lake in Viti crater.

Not far away is the Hverir Geothermal Site, which has bubbling pools of mud and steaming sulfur fumaroles. Phew-ew!

I've never watched Game of Thrones, but apparently Grjótagjá cave is a thing, so we stopped for a quick peek. It's a geothermal pool in a cave.

Dimmuborgir (translated "dark forts") is a lava field with caves and interesting formations. One lava tube looks like a church.

The Mývatn Nature Baths are geothermally-heated pools, so we stopped for a 2-hour soak.

The bed-and-breakfast tonight has its own natural geothermal pool, so Carrie did a second soak. A couple staying in the B&B were French, so Carrie took another opportunity to practice her French.

Natural hot spring behind the B&B

Iceland - Ring Road east

Leaving the hostel, today's drive follows the coast for awhile before the Ring Road turns inland. Like yesterday, there is high fog but it is still beautiful. The first stop is the colorful town of Seyðisfjörður, which requires driving on a spur road over the Fjarðarheiði mountain through thick fog. We walk the town to see the colorful buildings and blue church.

We went to the Skaftfell art exhibit, which had about a dozen quirky collections. We also hiked to Tvísöngur, which is a 5-dome structure with interesting acoustics.

We had time for a 2-hour hike, so stopped at the visitor center and were recommended Vestdalseyri, a hike up a large stream with cascades and waterfalls that starts on the north side of the bay near old ruins. So we did it, and it was the nicest Iceland hike so far.

Next we drove inland back through fog to a 3-mile uphill hike to the 386-foot-high 35-foot-wide Hengifoss waterfall cascading over volcanic bedrock with red bands.

We were planning to food shop, but we can go a few more days. Dinner was ramen noodles with egg.
 

Iceland - Ring Road southeast

We returned to the Vatnajökull National Park in the Skaftafell area to walk to a glacier.

On to Diamond Beach, where lots of iceberg chunks from the glacier wash ashore. Light rain started during the drive and continued most of the day. 

Across from Diamond Beach is the Jökulsárlón, which literally means glacier river lagoon. A boat tour gives a close-up of the icebergs and glacier. The blue color is from compacting out the air. Black streaks may not be dirt but layers of ash from volcano eruptions - the ice is hundreds of years old.

Höfn, which means harbor, is a fishing and tourist town. It also has a national park visitor center with 2 videos, a good place for a rainy afternoon. 

The coastal drive has high fog but is beautiful. We even saw what we think are reindeer.

Djúpivogur, a small town surrounded by 3 fjords, is perhaps best known for its egg sculptures, one for each species of seabird. 

Sveinsstekksfoss is a 49-foot-high 35-foot-wide waterfall and Folaldafoss is a 54-foot-high 15-foot-wide waterfall. In case you haven't caught on yet, "foss" is Icelandic for waterfall. These 2 are afterthoughts in Iceland but would be major attractions most other places. 

We’re using google maps and were surprised to see a traffic slowdown reported ahead of us on a deserted road. When we reached it, there was 1 car pulled over to take a picture, so we did likewise, confirming to google that there really is a traffic slowdown. :)

Like last night, we stay in a hostel far from town and like last night, we have the place to ourselves.

Iceland - Ring Road south

We ate another yummy breakfast of skyr, granola, and raisins. Carrie made rolex’s for lunch, which is a Ugandan dish, with fried egg rolled in chapati (well we used tortilla because Bonus didn’t have chapati :).

We stopped for gas at an unattended gas station. Many gas stations in Iceland are unattended and require a chip-and-pin card. Most USA credit cards require a signature and won’t work. Bill’s credit union debit card worked fine.

Our first sight is the 200-foot-high 50-foot-wide Seljalandsfoss waterfall. You can walk behind the waterfall and look through it, which is very cool.

Next is the 227-foot-high 100-foot-wide Skógafoss waterfall. It drops from the highland plateau to the lowlands over what was once the cliffs along the ocean shore. We walked up lots of steps to a viewpoint at the top of the falls and continued upstream past pretty cascades. There is a second large waterfall further upstream but the trail was closed. We had a snack of crackers and smurostur, which is an Icelandic product like flavored cream cheese.

Dyrhólaey was originally a volcanic island but is now a peninsula with a beautiful view and a lighthouse. Lots of birds nesting on the rock by the arch.

Reynisfjara is a black sand beach with basalt sea stacks. The cliff has hexagonal rock formations formed as lava cooled.

We saw 2 guys hitch-hiking, so we picked them up. They were both Polish and one spoke good English and worked in a restaurant and the other spoke only a little English and worked in elder care. Iceland’s population is about 350,000 and apparently 10% are Polish. They said the pay is better in Iceland than in Poland.

We planned to see Fjaðrárgljúfur, a beautiful canyon cut by glacial erosion about a mile long and 330' deep, walking the short trail to the overlook. But it was closed. That night, in my google "news for you" there was an article about the closure. Apparently Justin Beiber filmed a video there, off-trail and in the stream, so lots of people were doing the same and ruining the canyon. So it is closed and I have no picture to post. :( While google correctly highlighted an article that interests me, it’s creepy. Were they using my map destinations?

It was cloudy all day, but a light rain started before Vatnajökull National Park. Undeterred, we stopped at Skaftafell for the S2 hike. It’s a 3.4-mile walk past the 78-foot-high Hundafoss waterfall and 31-foot-high Magnúsarfoss waterfall to the 65-foot-high Svartifoss waterfall, where water falls over black basalt columns.

Dinner was soup and tuna melt, cooked in the hostel’s nicely equipped kitchen. There were no other guests in the hostel.  Nearby the hostel was a small church.