Day 4 (205 miles): Höfn to Borgarfjörður Eystri - Lighthouses, Reindeer, Djupivogur, and Puffins

Day 4 was our drive through the East Icelands fjords. There aren't a lot of major attractions here, and the East fjords are much less visited than Iceland's southern region. The East side would turn out to be the most beautiful part of our trip. We saw hundreds of waterfalls on every mountainside, and steep snow covered mountains along lush green valleys reminiscent of Switzerland. We also drove through several small adorable fishing villages on our way. Although you can take a more direct route, we chose to drive longer along the Ring Road up until Reydarfjordur to see more of the coast and because we read the more direct route included a less than stellar gravel road.

There is a 90 minute drive between Höfn and the first town, so that means no services whatsoever, it's very remote. There is a lighthouse to see.

Our first stop, Hvalnes Lighthouse

View of a black sand beach from Hvalnes Lighthouse

We did find portapotties soon after the lighthouse. I think this was actually the site of the the first baptism in Iceland, but I'm not entirely sure.

There are Whooper swans everywhere in Iceland

The first fjord town we stopped in was Djupivogur. It has a population of 456, and there are a few things to see there. There is a cafe that serves cakes in a historic building. The Langabud building as it stands was built in 1850, but has been there in some form since 1589.

Cake and coffee at Langabud

The small harbor

Funny little lighthouse

There is an art installation that shows each type of egg of the nesting bird species here.

Up the road from Djupivogur is the Tiegarhorn Nature Preserve where they have preserved a local house. I didn't really read much on it because we found a really friendly cat there which I immediately picked up and spent most of the time walking around with.

A little ways up the road is a small unmarked turn off, where we hiked up to an unnamed waterfall.

Fishing nets in Berufjordur

Up the road a bit is an official tourist parking lot for another waterfall, Sveinstekksfoss. The falls themselves are nothing spectacular, but the surroundings are beautiful, and it's worth a visit.

There are more sheep than people in Iceland.

If you drive past the waterfall, you'll find yourself in a perfect grass meadow, which is an unusual find in Iceland. 

Sveinstekksfoss

Our next stop was Streitisviti Lighthouse. The lighthouses in Iceland are so unlike the ones in the US. When we pulled into the parking lot, there was a herd of reindeer galloping by.

Streitisviti Lighthouse

We headed into Breiðdalsvík for lunch. It was slim pickings again, but we found surprisingly good food at the Kaupfjelagid Old General Store. We had heard that hot dogs were the national food of Iceland, but had failed to find them anywhere. It really seemed that hamburgers were the only option, but the general store had them! But no! They were out of hot dogs, so another hamburger for us. 

This is the gas station, a single pump and no store, seriously tiny town.

After Breidalsvik, we drove through really varied and extremely beautiful terrain. We passed through Egilstaddir, which is a fairly large town, but only made a quick stop.

View from the most scenic bathroom.

Very scenic bathroom in the middle of nowhere. 

One of my favorite views of the trip, the mountain pass into Borgarfjordur Eystri

We arrived in Borgarfjordur Eystri around 5pm or so, and immediately went to the Puffin area. There is a spit of land where they nest in the fjord. We were lucky enough to see them close up!

The puffins ran in and out of their burrows. 

There were huge flocks of puffins floating out on the water. 

The town we stayed in was very cute and tiny. 

This turf house is someone's summer home.

We stayed at Blabjorg guesthouse in a 3 bedroom two bathroom apartment. It was gigantic and totally new, it was amazing!

View of our living room from the second floor. 

The sauna

The guesthouse has four hot tubs.

View from the hot tub. 

View from our apartment. 

We had to leave early the next morning, so we were going to miss breakfast, and there are no stores in town (I'm pretty sure the closest store is 2 hours away). The staff were so accommodating and gave us a ton food the night before. They even gave us some homemade rhubarb treats and plenty of my favorite - Smjor butter!

 Overall this was probably my favorite day of the trip.