I awoke after what seemed like 15 minutes sleep as a result of our previous nights journey to Myvatyn and keeping a regular lookout for the northern lights. I thought the lack of sleep may have had coloured my memory of having decended the stairs of Mt. Everest to access our downstairs bathroom until I awoke and found out that I hadn't been dreaming !
We (Monika and I) had the luxury of some chill time with Tegan & Billy off playing "Annie Oakley" and Hopalong Cassidy" in the form of a nearby morning horse riding activity. With Monika having prepped our on road lunches and having helped to clean up we set off and picked up the mainly frozen "corpses" of Tegan and Billly around 1.00p.m. having had a good 2 hour session in the snow on their "Not" Iceland Ponies !
It was 1.00p.m. by the time we finally hit the road on a beautifully clear and slightly now above zero C day !
Our journey took us back to Myvatyn (90 kms - this time in the daylight ) where we located the well known Grjotagja cave, a former hot hole used for swimming up till the 1970's when geothermal activity caused the water temperature to rise to unswimmable levels. The caves more recent claim to fame was its use in a well known scene from the popular TV series The Game of Thrones. This claustrophobic narrow cave with icy rocky steps opens up to reveal beautifully clear superheated water providing a stunning view in between wafting sulphur filled steam clouds.
Thankfully none of us fell into the 50c water and we were soon back in the car stopping less than 5 minutes away at the Myvatyn nature baths for a coffee and a chance for Monika to look at this beautifully situated hot baths that we'd visited the night before.
From Myvatyn we crossed a seemingly endless succession of snow covered valleys eventually arriving at Egigilsstaoir near the Icelandic east coast. Its poulation of 2, 300 is as big as you get in this neck of the woods although with not too many restaurants to be found.
After driving around we finally settled on a cafe / restaurant where we duly overdosed on fast food Iceland style. The place looked like the equivalent of Mcdonalds, Pizza Hut and the local Fish Chippery all thown into one. Surprisingly the food was pretty good although we did leave with much lighter wallets with even a simple fish and chips meal and a soft drink setting us back about $45 per person !
With the sun now beginning to set we drove to our accommodation some 15kms away first taking a wrong road that lead us into an area that looked straight out of Deliverance !
After quickly back tracking we finally found our uniquely designed accommodation. A converted barn structure provided for detached showers and an eating / entertainment area which left us with a smallish 1 bedroom cabin where the likelihood of tripping over each other during the night to either go to the toiket or view the Northern Lights o get up and see the northern lights was pretty damned high !
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