we all knew my dad is, and has always been, a flexible person. so i wasn't quite surprised when he said we would not stay a night at hvammstangi, but spend it at jokulsarlon on the last day instead.

yeah, that meant we would drive all the way to grundarfjordur today, and two days later an eight-hour drive across half of the circle to jokulsarlon.

it sounded exciting to me. something unexpected, something fun.

it was a fine morning as we left akureyri and headed towards the west, though we were warned about the storm hitting the west side of the country today. we were lucky enough to spot a number of icelandic horses in such a beautiful setting. with  river flowing nearby and range of mountains as a background. their crests and tails dancing against the gentle wind.


things started to stirred up once we left hvitserkur, the weird elephant-shape rock in the sea. it started to snow and the wind became stronger and stronger. our navigator was being ridiculous (again) by telling us to drive all the way down to the southern tip of west iceland, when our destination was at the northern part of the tip. if we were to follow the navigator, we would have to drive a hundred kilometres more than the sensible route.

yes, the sensible route. we had probably forgot how the road we chose to take to egilsstadir was like. so we believes our instinct instead of the navigator and turned on the shorter route just to face an unpaved road. every time we made a turn, we hoped to see anything other than (yet) another unpaved road. it went on for slightly more than a hundred kilometres, until the road to stykkisholmur. the wind never got tired of hitting our car, it became more energetic as we were driving along the coast. my dad almost lost the control of the car twice because of the wind and icy gravel road. we could see no more than 2 metres in front of us. it was scary and yet exciting to witness the nature so angry as the wind was that day.

at last, we were convinced that the navigator knew its job the best.

and finally, we arrived at grundarfjordur. the wind was still attacking us and it was hard to even get out of the car. but we managed to do it twice and then spent the rest of the afternoon in out apartment.


we stayed at grundarfjordur hostel and apartment (yha) and it was worth the money. with fully-equipped kitchen and accommodated up to four people. the apartment was nice and clean, each wall painted with bright colour. it was at the northern tip of the town, and kirkjufell was visible through our windows. (ps. room no. 4!)


kirkjufell/foss (fell—the mountain, foss—the waterfall) was 5-minute drive away, and we went there twice even more often than that. it was the most beautiful (and scary, the wind almost blew my dad away!) on the last morning before we left because it had been snowing all night long ad parts of the stream was frozen.


we also drive down the south on road no. 54 to hellnar, where there was this lava arch. we couldn't stay there so long because one minute it was sunny and the next it started to snow. however, the drive was quite a pleasant one, with pretty lava fields and lovely little turf house under the grass.


during our drive back on the road no. 54, the sky was blue the road was covered in snow and every once in a long while we would see any other cars on the route. and that was when i named this trip the road less travelled.