A trip to Mjóifjörður, Iceland

 I spent a week with my family in Mjóifjörður (direct translation: Skinny Fjord :) just recently, which is a fjord in the eastern part of Iceland. It is a 10 hour drive from Reykjavík (the capital city of Iceland), and only about twenty people live there. In the winter, they often have to use a boat to go and buy necessities (there is no shop there) because the snow closes off the road. Staying there was fascinating, as I hope you can tell from my pictures.

 First up are a few photos which I took on the way. Above is the mountain "Þríhyrningur" or "Triangle".

 You can see the glacier hiding in the fog and the ash, from the recent eruption.

Some places, the sun was dimmed a bit because of the remaining ash. This picture is taken around 3 or 4 o'clock in the daytime!

 Can you see the ash on the road?

This one is taken in Freysnes, where we had dinner on our way.

The black "tongue" coming down from the mountains is a glacier. It is usually white or slightly blue, but it is black now, because of the ash (the ash is in a limited area though, don't worry, the whole of Iceland isn't dark!).

Jökulsárlón in the evening. It is fascinating to see all this ice from the glacier, so close. I even sailed on this water once when I was younger, it is absolutely beautiful. Taken from inside the car when we were crossing the bridge.

 There was a lot of fog.

 Finally, Mjóifjörður is getting closer!

To get to Mjóifjörður, you have to cross a heath (isn't that what it's called?). The road is rather steep and there was snow and fog everywhere (it was the 10th of June!).

Coming through the snow and down to the fjord was magnificent, and the view was spectacular.

 A mountain in Mjóifjörður.

 The fog completely filled the fjord the evening we arrived, so you couldn't even see the water.

I was playing with some different settings on my camera, I really like this one.

 There were small waterfalls and fountains everywhere, and the water from this one was the best I'd had for quite some time.

We had a visitor! On Monday, a whale swam into the fjord. You could see him (or her) quite clearly when he was on his way back to the ocean. I have to admit, that before this, I had thought of swimming across the fjord... but I'm not quite up to swimming with whales just yet, although the local people told us that they were very friendly. Once, a man was fishing on a small boat in the fjord, when he saw a whale nearby. He sailed towards it, and the whale showed him his tail, as if he was performing for him!

We drove to Dalatangi, which is even more closed off than Mjóifjörður. There were some absolutely beautiful cliffs on the way.

 The view from Dalatangi.

 The new lighthouse at Dalatangi. I love how yellow it is!

 The old lighthouse at Dalatangi, which is a whole lot smaller and out of use now.

 From Dalatangi, you can see the fjord next to Mjóifjörður, which is Seyðisfjörður.

On the way from Dalatangi back to Mjóifjörður, we met this momma with her children. They were having a cozy time inside the ruins of an old house. You can still see the stove (the rusty white one in the middle of the picture).

We found this house in Mjóifjörður, in which nobody lives right now. Something fascinates me about old houses which haven't been lived in for years.

 And now, on the way back to Reykjavík. This river is "Lögurinn", and we have an old story about a monster living in it (a humongous worm, to be exact...). Needless to say, we hurried by.

At first, we were going to go back the same way that we came, but we made a last minute decision about going the other way home, stopping by in Akureyri (a town in the northern part of Iceland). Therefore, we actually drove around the whole country, which I had never done before.

 Before arriving at Akureyri, we had to drive through the Mývatn area, which is a very beautiful area, with many small and larger waters, as well as lava formations, which play with the water to form a fascinating unity, as can be seen below.

 Meet on of Iceland's most popular ice cream shops - Brynja. Driving through Akureyri without stopping at Brynja for some ice cream would be a shame, to say the least! If you ever go to Akureyri, be sure to taste Brynja's ice cream!

 Almost home...

And finally, home. Somehow, it always feels so good to be back home, even though the trip was amazing.

Have you had some time for travelling yet? Tell me!

Yours,
Miss Diorista

P.S. I have two short landscape videos from the trip, which I plan to upload on YouTube soon. I'll probably post them on the blog, too.