Day 11 - Drive to Southwest Iceland (Skogar, Hvolsvöllur, Leirubakki, Laugaras)

Today we drove from Vik to Laugaras going via Skogar, Hvolsvöllur, taking a detour to Leirubakki then back to Hvolsvöllur, then to Hella and then to Laugaras via route 30.  We saw many more vehicles today on the road than the past several days combined as we're now closer to Reykjavik.

We were going to check out the caves at Dyrhólaey unfortunately that didn't turn work out.  The jeep got stuck at the turn off and we had to dig the snow around the tyres off the road with our hands before the jeep would finally move, but alas even though we passed the turn off the caves were inaccessible.

So instead we carried on driving and we arrived at Skogar, which is famous for the Skogarfoss waterfall.
We also saw a group of mostly elderly japanese who had arrived the same time as we did.  No one said Konnichiwa to me this time.  We attempted to climb the waterfall but then it started to hail so we stopped, on this side of the island it hails and it's quite painful if you're wearing thin clothes.

Skogarfoss!

Me in front of le mighty waterfall which measures 60m high.  Legend has it there's gold behind the waterfall.

We also visited the folk museum to check out how life used to be a long time ago.  Here's a pair of "poor man's Nikes".  They are made of fish skin and only last several kms before they have to be changed.  A far cry from what we're used to now.

Whale stomach.  Lots of things were made of whale, chairs, tables, tools, etc.

Toys for children.  Today if you're caught with these someone will think you're a murderer or killer of sorts, but not back then!

After the museum visit we stopped for coffee at Hvolsvollur. Also had lunch of jalepeno cheese which we bought last night with bread that we bought in Akureyri.  Then we drove to Leirubakki for the purpose of visiting the Hekla exhibition center (Hekla is a live volcano) but that was closed.  We tried to drive to the location where Hekla was located but that road was closed too. So instead we took some photos and then drove back to the ring road going to Laugaras.

Hekla's somewhere in the background.

Photos at Laugaras.  Our hotel is in a state of to be completed i.e. renovations.  We suspect we are the only ones renting the hotel.  In the hotel corridor you can see furniture from other rooms.  And the second floor doesn't even have a wall constructed, you can see the insides.  This hotel is possibly a victim of the financial crisis that occurred 2 years ago.  Abandoned now being built again.

Anyway here are some photos we took driving around.

Girl made out of wood.

We had dinner at Cafe Klettur which is about 10kms from where we are.  There was a very jovial Norwegian there who shook my hand and said goodbye to me as we left.  It was a very small restaurant and even though there weren't many people there it was noisy.  I suppose that's where people must hang out on the weekend in this area.  The waitresses greeted us initially in Icelandic, they just assume we are Icelandic, so possibly they don't get many tourists in this area in winter time.

Lauren had some foal and I tried some as well.  It was quite tasty but the thought of me eating the horse that I rode on about a week ago turned me off a bit.

Night shot of the restaurant.

Tomorrow we'll be off to the Golden Circle and then head off to Reykjavik.