Day 5 Northern Iceland

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Day 5

We left the camp site at about 8.45am....well attempted to leave! It had rained most of the night and the motor home had sunk into the soft grass-covered soil. We couldn't move backwards or forwards. By this time, it had stopped raining. A very kind German couple came to our rescue when they saw me pushing the vehicle while Tom was trying to edge it out of the rut. We managed to move it backwards but not forwards....until we got the help from the German couple. It was lovely of them. The poor guy slipped and fell head first onto the very soggy grass, while he was pushing the car. He was drenched all down one side of him. Non-the-less, with the 3 of us pushing, we eventually hit solid ground. Apologised to our helper who had taken the nose-dive, we thanked them both, washed all the grass off the motor home and drove on our way.

We headed east to visit Hraunfossar waterfalls, Reykholt village and Deildartunguhver hot spring. Then we continue to the north, past Grábrók crater (which we climbed to obtain a lovely view over the area) and over Holtavörðuheiði pass, which brought us to Húnavatnssýsla County. This area has quite a bit of agriculture and Skagafjörður County is famous for horse breeding. We stopped at Blondous to do some food shopping after having lunch along the way, before continuing over the impressive pass Öxnadalsheiði (550 m) to Akureyri, the most important town of the north. We overnight in a camp site in the middle of the town of Akureyri.

While is Akureyri, we walked to a restaurant into town (5 minutes walk) and the wind was freezing. We were trying to find a restaurant that served reindeer but found out that it was out of season. Reindeer was only served in winter. I ended up trying whale (feeling a little guilty) and Tom ordered catfish. The whale was a deep almost-purple meat with white sinews through it but very tender. It was served with plum sauce and rosemary-flavoured gravy. The catfish was very white and light and flavoursome. Tom washed his down with a white Icelandic ale and I had a house red. We decided to walk the long way back to our home, to walk the meal off a little!!



We put the heater on when we got back to the motor home. We are finding it beautifully warm, as it is in bed. We both slept well.

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