We had a significant amount of road of today’s programme, because the minimum amount of driving was 270km for 3h21. We ended up doing more than that and visited many things along the way: we left the previous hotel around 9h30 and we arrived at today’s hotel at 19h15!

We started with a first stop in Kolugljúfur Canyon, which was, as expected, a canyon. Beautiful place with a waterfall ending in a river flowing inside a canyon.

We then drove to Þingeyraklausturskirkja, which promised a small church with a beautiful panoramic view, and it didn’t disappoint. The church was unfortunately closed (I would have liked to see the inside!), but the panoramic view didn’t disappoint!

Nearby (basically going back to the main road and crossing it), we did a stop at the Vatnsdalshólar view point. Google Maps had a lot of pictures of a dog, and said dog was indeed in the vicinity and very friendly 🙂 There was a small hill with a staircase that had a very nice view over the nearby water and the field of hills behind it.

By that point, we hadn’t moved very far from our departure point towards our goal, so we drove a bit more of the main road, with the goal of stopping at Reykjafoss.

Reykjafoss is a beautiful waterfall, and probably my favorite one of all the ones I saw today. It’s absolutely gorgeous, and the river that feeds it is surprisingly quiet. Of note: there’s also a hot pot on the side of said river, so we crossed paths with a least a pair of people in bathing suits and there was a few more around 🙂 It’s also very close to a stable, so there’s quite a few horses around.

After Reykjafoss, we aimed for our next stop, but did an extra one near Hörgarsveit, which was a decent parking lot on the Ring Road, where we wanted to switch drivers (I don’t drive that much, but I’m trying to drive a bit more so that Pierre can rest a bit!). That bit didn’t work that well because I had to yield the wheel earlier than I would have liked (but my drowsiness level was becoming dangerous 😦 ), but Hörgarsveit was a nice road stop, with a river flowing down a canyon. Officially there should be hiking trails starting there, but the bit we saw looked frankly too dangerous for us.

Goðafoss was our last planned stop for the day; an impressive waterfall (although carrying a significant amount of particles), with very well organized paths on both sides of it. A very enjoyable site (and sight!).

By then, we were half an hour away from our hotel, which was a good thing as we had a restaurant reservation there 45 minutes later. We arrived in the beautiful area of the Mývatn lake in time for the evening light. We had dinner at the restaurant hotel  (good stuff and well prepared), went outside for a little bit to enjoy the evening view – vaguely spoiled by the amount of insects; this is going to be a problem tomorrow, probably. Still, the area looks amazing.

Back in our hotel room, I realized sunscreen would have been smart today (oops), and Pierre stumbled upon Ghostbusters on the TV (so I watched the end of Ghostbusters, which apparently I know by heart more than I thought), and that’s pretty much it for today!

The photo album for this day is here: Iceland – 2025-08-18.