Twelve hours of sleeps does wonders for the nervous system, but it can cause havoc with carefully laid travel plans.  We needed the sleep after yeserday and a half, and our hosts accommodated by setting a noon check-out time.

So we slept in, and paid a price a little later in the day.

The short seasonal darkness and the blackout shades in our bedroom creates some evening/morning confusion.  This would have been a great trip to bring a watch to set to the proper time zone, but for some reason I did not pack my watch.  Phones and tablets are looked on with some scepticism — some have changed to the new time and some have not.

We eventually got ourselves in the correct morning state of mind, ate our Bonus-supplied breakfast foods, pack the car, and hit the road before noon, but a little later than Jen had planned for.

Oh, and some of us even squeezed in a visit to the local livestock.  Our night 1 accommodations were not only perched above an inlet overlooking the Borgarnes across the way, they were also on a working farm.  The sheep were curious, but not necessarily cuddly.

Once we got moving, we zipped around the inlet and into town for an abridged visit.  Essentially, it was a coffee run. Borgarnes provided a funky cafe with lots of latte, but we didn’t take time to wander around like we tend to do.

Driving is pretty easy here.  They drive on the familiar side of the road.  Traffic is limited.  Signs are legible, even if we would be woeful if we had to pronounce the place names.   GPS has been helpful.  It got us to our first destination, a set of incredible waterfalls, with no problems.

GPS has been helpful, but not flawless.  Google tried to route us to our second destination via an unmarked farm road that seemed to be going in the opposite direction of where we thought our destination lay.

We decided to take the long way around, adding 10 minutes to our trip.  I have no idea where we would have ended up if we took the unmarked road (just about all the other side roads are labeled in some way — perhaps with the names of the people who live on them?  We really did not put in any effort to learn about the language here, so it’s tough to tell.

Happily, though a tad later than expected, we made it to destination 2, the largest goat farm in the nation.  Among the draws were goat’s milk ice cream, plus sampling of fresh cheese.  But, c’mon,  this was the real draw of the Icelandic Goat Center at Haafell.

This farm, inspired several decades ago when an Icelandic farm girl read Heidi, has almost single-handedly preserved the breed of Icelandic goats that has remained undiluted since original settlers arrived more than 1,000 years ago.  It also supplied goats for a Game of Thrones scene involving a dragon.

We lingered here for quite a while — the goat’s milk ice cream proved to be a winner and we picked up some cheese for our picnic, too.  But our timetable got pushed even a little further back.

We pushed on along the ring and found that driving itself was a satisfactory way to pass the time.  The landscape took on a very accute resemblance to the American West, with wide valleys, steep cliffs and lots of open space.

Our third stop for the day was a quick hike around a volcanic crater, not terribly unlike the one was saw yesterday — except this one was several thousand years removed from bubbling lava.  It was right by the side of the road, and a wooden staircase led us to the top.  Then we circled the crater, taking in views in all directions.

Actually, there were three craters here.  We were able to climb and walk  along the biggest one.  The crater hike and the waterfalls earlier in the day were very quick visits — and definitely worth the time.  Because of our late start, though, and the goat farm (also worth the time), we were starting to foresee problems.

It was already almost 4 pm and we hadn’t had our picnic yet.  Plus, we were meant to check into our hotel by 8 pm, and we still had a significant amount of driving to do.

Our picnic wound up in an un-scenic rest area/gas station by the side of road, and our afternoon soak in a geothermal infinity pool had to get cut out entirely.  These are a few of the repercussions of being behind in the timetable.

On the bright side, we got to see a lot of Iceland while we were driving, and as we entered the northern part of the country the American West scenery evolved into alpine Europe.  More accurately, it was alpine on one side and ocean on the other, which I don’t think even Europe can offer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our hosts in Siglufjörður were able to accommodate our late arrival — we checked in much closer to 9 pm than 8.  Happily, we still had energy to roam this lovely small town in the late evening sunlight.  Unfortunately, another consequence of our late arrival was that all businesses that might have provided us snacks were closed by the time we hit the streets.  No fresh fish and chips for us — or even frozen Chinese food from the grocery story.  Even the food trucks at the micro-brewery shut down minutes before we got there.

But, the beer was still flowing.  So we had that going for us.