Today was much lighter, visits wise, partly because we had a bit of adventures in the morning. Yesterday, the car started complaining about the tire pressure – not something one wants to be sloppy about, especially on these roads. Hence, the first stop this morning was a gas station for, well, gas, and tire pressure. At first, I couldn’t see a tire pressure device anywhere, so I asked the person at the attending shop, who told me “it’s on the side of the building” and gave me a small metallic device.

Somewhat confused, we go to the side of a building, and find a/ a cupboard with a manometer, but locked b/ an air pipe without a manometer. After another confused conversation with a local who didn’t seem to understand why we couldn’t read the tire pressure, we went back in the shop, and the nice lady at the register explained to us that the mysterious metallic device was, indeed, a manometer. Behold:

Yes, it’s a manual linear manometer expressed in PSI. We were not expecting that for sure. But once we got that piece of information, we checked the tire pressure and went on our merry way (after giving back the manometer and our thanks to the shop clerk).

We were on our merry way… not for very long, though, because we hadn’t looked well enough at the road condition website (“it’s summer and we’re on the main road of the country, what can possibly go wrong?”) and it turns out that the bridge over the river of the large fall we saw yesterday was closed multiple hours a day for road works.

We arrived there around 11:15, and the closure was planned until 12:00, with no obvious choice of anything else to do than wait. So we did that, the closure ended a bit earlier than expected (surprising the second person in the queue who ran back to their car), and we were on our merry way… again.

Our first “real” stop of the day was at the Stuðlagil Canyon, where we enjoyed the view over the river and the impressive basalt structures. There was a set of paths and platforms on our side of the canyon, with more hiking paths on the other side (there was a bit of regret of not having gone to the other side, but oh well) and the view was super impressive. And not only because the island in the middle looked like a gigantic alligator.

After this, it was already quite later than what we had expected. There was another possible stop on our path to our other main stop, and the words “we’ll time box the waterfall” may have been pronounced today. It was indeed a quick stop along the ring road, but Rjúkandi was a pretty waterfall.

Our last objective for the day was to go see Hafnarhólmi, known for being a breeding ground for puffins and other birds (although it was slightly too late for the season). Mostly, the road to there was supposed to be spectacular, and there was also many hiking paths in the vicinity. We didn’t have time for the hiking paths, but the road was indeed wonderful: the mountain pass next to the see made us stop multiple times and gush with awe all along the way.

Hafnarhólmi was a nice place, with some installations to be able to watch birds from inside. We saw a lot of gulls, but it was definitely not puffin season. We did see one from afar, however! and decided the mission was a success.

Following that, we drove to our hotel in Egilsstaðir, where we settled and had a great dinner and went for a very short stroll around the hotel  to see the lake. We had some hope to see Northern lights tonight, but it seems the cloud layer is disagreeing with that hope. Maybe later!

The photo album for this day is here: Iceland – 2025-08-20.