After packing up and loading up the car, we went into the busy dining room area where the included breakfast was served. It consisted of the usual assortment of bread, ham, cheese, eggs, cucumber, tomatoes, butter, jam, etc. with orange juice, apple juice, milk, coffee, and water. But this breakfast also included syld and kverabrauð as well as smoked trout. The syld was something I hadn't seen since the koldtbord breakfasts in Norway. I was hesitant to try the kverabrauð after our smoky-tasting experience last night at Gamle Bærinn. However, one taste today and it seemed to actually taste pretty good. This breakfast had to rank up there with the one we had at Hotel Ólafsvík.

We next briefly took photos of the Mývatn area before starting to leave town at 8am. The midges weren't quite out yet, but we could tell as the day would heat up later on, they'd be swarming around here once again.

On the way out of town, we decided to make a quick detour to the Krafla area before we bid this area farewell. After passing through an interesting geothermal plant with pipes going around the road like an arch, we climbed up out of the little valley and then further onto a car park next to Stóra-Víti.

We spent a few minutes walking up the surprisingly slippery (due to the loose sand and gravel on the narrow crater slopes) path towards the opposite side of the rim. Inside the crater is an colorful mineral-laced lake juxtaposing the colorful rim of the crater very nicely. Under the mostly sunny conditions of the day, it was quite a photogenic site.

By 9:15am, we finally left the Krafla area and then did some extensive driving en route to Egilsstaðir. Along the way, we took a lengthy detour to the Vopnafjörður area to see Selárfoss and Draugafoss. Selárfoss was really nothing more than rapids with a fish-ladder waterfall. Not really worth the trouble to see this one in my mind, but the area was busy with anglers and local families swimming in a nearby facility. Fortunately, the lady working at the swimming facility let me use their restroom when I asked her in Icelandic about it.

Draugafoss was an impressive waterfall that kind of reminded me of something we would've seen in Forsæludalur had we not have so much trouble figuring out the "trail." It was too bad with this waterfall that it was not signposted nor was there a formal pullout nor trail. We just found some makeshift pullout below the road's embankment and then I scrambled onto a grassy field following narrow sheep and human tracks to an acceptable view of the falls. I didn't bother venturing all the way to the base as it would've involved fording a small side stream.

Vopnafjörður was a very beautiful fjord and town. Across the fjord's deep blue waters were snow-capped peaks watching over the area. Wildflowers were also in bloom to futher decorate the scenery. When our detour from the Ring Road ended, we continued eastwards but not before a brief stop at Bustafell's turf farm where a waterfall attracted us but we didn't get much of a view beyond the farm.

It was now around 2:30pm when we were back near where the Ring Road went from unpaved to paved again. However, we saw an unexpected series of waterfalls from the fast-moving road. Two of them had paved pullouts. The ones with the pullouts looked very significant, but there wasn't any other infrastructure to indicate otherwise so I reckon most people miss these.

Before making the final push to Egilsstaðir, we took another detour to Lagarfoss. Unfortunately with this waterfall, it was dammed up to generate hydroelectric power.

That was quite a downer but it might have explained why we saw this very turquoise green lake the way it was since the sediment continues to build behind the dam walls. Given the fact that the controversial Káhranjúkar Dam is also near Egilsstaðir, it made me wonder whether East Iceland is the country's sacrificial lamb to try to harness hydroelectric power and somehow jump start the economy since their fishing industry seems to be in trouble.

Anyways, after checking into another nice Hotel Edda (Egilsstaðir) under rather warm weather (22 degrees Celsius), we headed back into town to look for something affordable to eat. After gorging ourselves on the BBQ buffet last night, we tried some crepe at this local place near the Bónus Supermarket. We weren't too pleased with our crepe, and I guess it just shows that we should've stuck with what Icelanders do best - seafood, lamb, and American fast food. Oh yeah, we had another softís (soft serve ice cream) in waffle cone. You can't go wrong with that!

With our stomachs stuffed, we left the Edda and started driving out to the Hengifoss trailhead at 8am. Along the way, we got beautiful views of reflections in the glacial lake dominating the scene between Egilsstaðir and Hengifoss. We got to the trailhead a little after 9am.

With the cloudless skies and the sun relentlessly beating down on us as we hiked the shadeless trail, we noticed there were numerous opportunities to take the cliff-side trails. Of course there wasn't any real reason to do those trails, which were dangerously slippery and close to the dropoffs. Eventually, the main trail got us a view of Litlanesfoss a little over half way up. The falls were in shadow but we made the most of it anyways.

Finally after over an hour of climbing, we made it to the 1.5km point of the hike which earned us a nice but distant view of Hengifoss. There was actually an additional 1km of rough hiking left to get closer to the falls, but we saw there was a hill that would've gotten in the way had you gotten close to the falls. We knew you had to scramble up a very steep scree slope to get better closeup views of the falls, but we figured it wasn't worth it. The first part of the rough last kilometer of trail also looked a bit slippery and scary.

Even with that said, an Italian couple showed up and the guy went all the way to the falls. And as we had suspected, we saw him scrambling up the dangerous scree slope to get a better look. Not long thereafter, an entourage of hikers from a tour company showed up a few minutes after we took our photos. They proceeded to continue hiking to the bottom of the falls as well so I reckon it wasn't all that bad to continue.

Still, Julie already started her descent back down to the car park. Torn between going the last kilometer and not leaving Julie behind, I opted to follow her back down.

Back at the car park, we noticed the sign talked about another impressive 100m waterfall called Strutsfoss. It didn't look too far from where we were so we decided to try to find it. So we continued heading west in the valley past the turnoff for the infamous Kárahnjúkar Dam and into an unsealed road following a glacial river called Jökulsá. It eventually ended at a private farm and we recalled from the map that the falls were further than the farm. So much for getting another waterfall bonus trip...

Next, we decided to head towards Seyðisfjörður. Along the way back to Hengifoss, I decided to stop and check out some falls on the same drainage as that of Kárahnjúkar. It wasn't signposted, but there was one of those steps letting you go over a barbed wire fence designed to keep sheep behind it.

Eventually, we'd start up on Route 93 past Egilsstaðir and climb up into the moors. But not before doing another 45-minute pause to check out Fardagafoss, which was actually two waterfalls on the same stream (with the lower one being more impressive than the upper one, I reckon).

The trail was signposted and pretty easy to follow. However, there were a couple of eroded spots, and in one of them, I tripped and fell. Good thing I fell straight down and not into the adjacent gorge. It was a little embarassing as there was someone heading up the other way ahead of me might have noticed. In any case, I kept on going, pretending that nothing happened.

At 2pm, we continued driving up into the moors beyond Fardagafoss. After heading down from the moors, the steep road wound its way towards the town Seydisfjörður as well as the similarly-named fjord. With each hairpin turn, the views were dramatic as steep mountain walls surrounded the picturesque town. In fact, the scene seemed strangely Norwegian. After all, it had the dramatic fjord-like scenery (complete with cascading waterfalls and several on the main river near the road), the red timber buildings, and heck even the power lines and hydroelectric structures were all reminiscent of our memories of our Norway Trip.

Of all the numerous waterfalls, which started with Gljúfurfoss and ended with an obscure one just downstream from Gufufoss, it was Gufufoss which was the only one with a reasonable car park to check out. The rest could only be seen without haste by foot along the highway or scrambling near the river I guess. There was also a lot of construction going on along this road. We weren't sure if they were for avalanche mitigation or for more hydroelectricity. Anyhow, we decided to get into town first and check out Gufufoss later in the day.

Down in the charming town, there was a pretty waterfall backed by a distinct peak. It motivated us to walk around town for a bit just to soak in the charming atmosphere here. Surrounded by steep peaks with snow still at the highest elevations, we could easily how avalanches can occur here.

A few minutes later, we had our Lunch/Dinner at a bistro at the Skaftafell Cultural Center. We spoke to the head chef there who apparently used to be one of three chefs at the local hotel nearby. They ultimately left and started this bistro we ate at. Needless to say, we got seafood there and it was good. Sure we splurged on the price, but we were already feeling good about being in Seyðisfjörður.

Before we left town, Julie wanted to take photos of this museum near the end of town called Tækniminjasafn Austurlands. Without knowing we had to pay to see the inside, we went inside and checked out the displays. A guy eventually came out to us and guilted us into paying for museum admission, which we weren't aware of until I noticed a sign just outside the door indicating as such.

Anyhow, we actually got a very informative tour about how hydroelectricity was harnessed as well as how machinery was built and then about telecommunication in the early days of the late 1800s. At least this tour gave us a feel for what all the things on display actually were since the signs were in Icelandic. I think any scientifically-minded person or engineer would really appreciate this tour. I certainly did.

Finally, we started our drive back to Egilsstaðir. It was only 26km but we made numerous stops to try to photograph some of the major waterfalls. We had a hard time trying to figure out where to stop (especially with all the construction going on), but at least we got to stop for Gufufoss. Unfortunately, the sun was shining right against my line of sight so I got terrible photos of it. I regretted my decision not to stop for this waterfall on the way into town. But at least Julie got a good shot of me unsuccessfully getting a shot of the falls.

As for the rest of the falls, like I said earlier, it'd have to be done by foot and there really didn't seem to be any infrastructure supporting such an option unless you walked along Route 93 and risk being roadkill by rubberneckers trying to pay attention to both the road and the incredible views.