Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Eastern and southeast Iceland
The 550km strip covering eastern and southeast Iceland a takes in a
quarter of the country's coastal fringe, plus some rugged highlands and
a good chunk of Vatnjökull, Europe's largest ice cap. Set on the Ringroad
halfway around the country from Reykjavík, Egilsstaðir makes a good
base for excursions inland around Lögurinn, a narrow, lake-like stretch
of river where you'll find some saga history and Iceland's most extensive
woodlands; or even for an assault on the highlands around Kárahnjúkar
and Snæfell, the latter eastern Iceland's tallest peak. The East Fjords feature
a sprinkling of picturesque, self-contained communities - including the
port of Seyðisfjörður, with its weekly ferry from the Faroes and Denmark -
though the main focus here is the fjords themselves: a mix of steep-sided
hills and blue waters, with plentiful wildlife and some relatively easy hiking
trails to investigate.
7
Below the East Fjords,
southeast Iceland
is dominated by the vastness of Vatnajökull,
whose icy cap and host of outrunning glaciers sprawl west of the town of
Höfn
. With a
largely infertile terrain of highland moors and coastal gravel deserts known as
sandurs
to contend with - not to mention a fair share of catastrophic volcanic events - the
population centres here are few and far between, though you can explore the glacial
fringes at the wild
Lónsöræfi reserve
, and at
Skaftafell National Park
, where there are
plenty of marked tracks. Further west, the tiny settlement of
Kirkjubæjarklaustur
is the
jumping-off point for several trips inland, the best of which takes you through the
fallout from one of Iceland's most disastrous eruptions.
GETTING AROUND
EASTERN AND SOUTHEAST ICELAND
By plane
Egilsstaðir and Höfn are served by a number of
regular flights from Reykjavík.
By bus
Between mid-May and mid-September, buses
travelling the Ringroad call at Egilsstaðir and Höfn, while
the East Fjords are mostly covered by individual local
services from Egilsstaðir. Note that from mid-September
until mid-May, there are no buses between Egilsstaðir
and Höfn.
Egilsstaðir
Whichever direction you've arrived from, the crossroads town of
EGILSSTAÐIR
is a bit
of an anticlimax. Egilsstaðir itself dates only to the late 1940s, when a supermarket,
a vet, a hospital and a telephone exchange chose to set up shop on a narrow strip of
moorland between the glacier-fed
Lagarfljöt river
and the back of the East Fjord fells,
bringing the first services into this remote corner of the country. Today Egilsstaðir has
grown to fill a couple of dozen streets but remains an unadorned service and supply
centre, important to the regional economy but containing neither a proper town centre
nor much in the way of essential viewing.
Hrafnkel's Saga
p.278
Hikes from Borgarfjörður Eystri
p.283
Seyðisfjörður hikes
p.284
Norðfjörður hikes
p.288
Hiking through Lónsöræfi
p.294
Glacier tours from Höfn
p.295
Skaftafellsheiði plateau circuit
p.300
Grímsvötn and jökulhlaups
p.301
