An eight hour drive with a gravel roads

Today we left Hellnar today and drove around the Snaefellsnes peninsula all the way to Lonkot, which is an eight hour drive.  We made very few stops along the way, and the few stops we did make were very short.  The first stop we made was in Hellissandur to get gas. Getting gas involved us going inside to figure out how the gas pump works because you have to prepay by guess how much gas you will need, but the system will only charge you for the amount used. The other hard part was estimating liters instead of gallons.  Our next stop was Kirkjufell, outside of Grundarfjordur to photograph a waterfall.  Several people were stopped at that water fall taking pictures. 

 

We ran out of paved road about 22 kilometers past Grundarfjordur, at that point it turned into a gravel and dirt road.  Yes it is still a main road and even indicates on the map it turns to gravel and dirt.  The gravel and dirt road lasted for approximately 66 kilometers.  We were on paved road again till we reached Budardalur where we stopped for lunch.  Then it was back on gravel and dirt road for another 36 kilometers. Our nice white SUV, ended up covered in mud, but what is interesting is it mostly stopped at ridgeline down the sides of the SUV.    We stopped at the seal center in Hvammstangi, but decided not to take the 90 minute boat tour to see if we could see seals. There were no seals at the seal center, and we opted not to drive around the Vatnsnes peninsula dirt road, which would have been an extra 76 kilometers. So we did not see seals and Jim did not see the interesting rock formation listed on the map.    We only made one more stop after the seal center and that was to take a quick picture of some mountains.  So today was mostly just driving.

Our hotel for the night is nice, it more along the lines of a B&B.  We are the first guest of the season and the room is one of the nicest we have stayed in so far.   Tomorrow we head to Akureyri, the capital of the north.