Iceland - Land of Fire & Ice Part 3 - Our Home Has 6 Wheels

The Ring Road Circle Route Reykjavik to Akureyri

The Ring Road Circle Route, not to be confused with the Golden Circle, is an 1,332 kilometer (828-mile) drive circumnavigating the entire island of Iceland. We signed up for a 13 day self driving tour with Iceland Tours which booked our vehicle and all of our accommodations for this trip. While you’re not going to see everything Iceland has to offer with this package and time frame, you do get to see a lot!

We left Reykjavik right after breakfast as this was actually the longest driving day of the trip. The drive is almost 5 hours without stops, and there are a lot of things to see. This is the part where we went oh, we thought we had lots of time for a leisurely drive to Akureyri, only to realize that with all the stops we had planned, thanks to the list of places that Iceland tours gave us telling us stop here, then make sure you stop there, you don’t want to miss this, there was no f*’ing way we were going to make Akureryi before midnight. Time to prioritize what was important and also what wouldn’t totally push us beyond the rather exhausted state we were still in from our flight and busy first two days.

The day we started our drive was overcast, dark and drizzly. While the low overcast obscures the bigger views, it certainly added a dramatic cast to the raw, barren volcanic landscape we drove through on our way north out of Reykjavik up to Borgarnes.

Volcanic cinder mountain along highway 1 to Borgarnes

Dramatic skies over Hvalfjörður fiord

Borgarnes

As we progressed north the rain finally stopped and the cloud ceiling raised a fair bit so we could start to see some of the surrounding mountains. We drove through a valley with some forested hillsides…unusual for Iceland, as there are no naturally occurring forest or even trees in Iceland. A bit later we drove over a high mountain plain with amazing views including snow capped mountains in the distance.

Lots of barren plateaus along Highway 1 to Stadarkali

Forested area long Highway 1

Trollakirkja mountain

There are very few villages and towns in Iceland like what we are used to in North America. The population of the entire country is only 340,000 people, about the same size as the population of greater Victoria where we live. So there are no little stores, cafes and restaurants to stop at along the way. Since we decided not to stop in Borganes, the first rest stop with amenities that we came to along Highway 1 was the N1 gas station/store/restaurant/cafe at Stadarkali about 3 1/2 hours from Reykjavik.

N1 Stadarkali

This place is quite amazing, big and modern. it has gas/diesel pumps, electric charging station for most electric cars and another one for Tesla’s. Inside is a restaurant, cafe and gift shop. When we first arrived the place was crazy busy. The parking lot had 3 tour buses and tons of cars and inside they were lined up like bargain hunters on Black Friday. The gods working us again?

Tesla charging station at the N1 Stadarkali

I just wanted a coffee but wasn’t prepared to stand in line for it. We had brought sandwiches with us so we sat in the car and ate lunch and enjoyed the surrounding views. It wasn’t actually long before the buses left and the place cleared out, so I was able to get my coffee. Though the twitching from caffeine withdrawal was getting fairly pronounced by this point. You could almost hear the gods laughing….or was that just the wind.

View of Trollakirkja Mountain from the N1 rest stop

Our first waterfall of the Ring Road was coming up next, and oh my, there are a lot of waterfalls in Iceland! Kolufoss is a few kilometres off the highway on a gravel road, but was well worth the stop. We drove a few kilometers down the gravel road coming to Kolugil Farm which is situated on the banks on the Víðidalsá river. Just below the farm, the waters flow along rather serenely before plunging into a deep narrow gorge called Kolugljúfur. A bridge crosses the river right below the falls so there are many vantage points for observing the falls and canyon.

Kolufoss & Kolugil Farm on the Víðidalsá river

The Víðidalsá River is quite placid before plunging over Kolufoss

Kolugljúfur Gorge

Kolufoss

On the way back to the highway there were some Icelandic horses in a pasture near the road, so we had to stop for some photos as the lighting and the sky were fantastic and one spectacular stallion was keeping a sharp eye on me while he strutted his stuff!

Magnificent Icelandic Horse on the way from Kolufoss

It gets much more mountainous as you get closer to Akureyri. The highway eventually climbs a high mountain pass and then winds down a valley lined with steep, sharp peaked mountains. Everywhere you look there is amazing scenery!

Mountain Pass near Akureryi

Beautiful farm in valley below Longuhlidharfjall Mountain near Akureyri

We staying at the Lamb Inn, which is a guesthouse located on a working sheep farm a few kilometres south of Akureryi. We drove straight there and checked in. All of our accommodations supplied a continental breakfast; but none of them – except for the larger hotels in Myvatn and Reykjavik – had restaurants that were open for lunches or dinners, so we would have to drive back into Akureyri for dinner.

Lamb Inn was made from a converted barn. It is a little rustic, but very comfortable and the setting is absolutely beautiful! The bedrooms aren’t fancy but are very clean and the beds very comfortable.

Lamb Inn, Akureryi

After checking in we headed back to Akureyri for dinner as we were both hungry and tired and were looking forward to some down time. We didn’t know where the best place to go to eat was so we did some Trip Advisor searches on the way and rolled the dice.

We ended up at Mulaberg Bistro & Bar which was a bit more upscale than we might have liked, but it turned out to be okay, the food was good, but not great. Once again, we were getting hit by sticker shock even though we knew what we were in for coming to Iceland…it’s expensive! We did luck out and arrived there during happy hour so the 15.00 beers and wines were more reasonable. Still, the VERY small steaks and a few garnishes, mushrooms (as an add-on) and a couple of drinks set us back about $125.00, such is Iceland!

Dinner at the Mulaberg Bistro & Bar, Akureyri

We walked around town for a while to check out the sights and found a couple of other decent looking restaurants that we could try the next night. Akureryi has a very European feel to it and is quite quaint and it was very pleasant walking around exploring the sites.