June 16:
Today we woke up and made some oatmeal with brown sugar for breakfast. We had a beautiful drive along the coast of northern Iceland!
Lots of sheep and horses along the road! One momma sheep walked right onto the road in front of us with two little babies in tow. We thankfully saw her and slowed down in time – though Graham mentioned something about “10 points for the big one, 5 points for the little ones”. Hmm… The mother sheep paused in the middle of the Highway and the two babies began to nurse while we just waited. We thought this was so funny. We beeped our horn and they eventually moved along.
There are so many baby horses as well! They were fun to watch as we drove along.
Akureyri
We stumbled upon this adorable little town while driving the ring road called Akureyri. It’s the second biggest city in Iceland after Reykjavík, nestled up in the northern side of the island. The city’s slogan was “love is in the air”, and they had big hearts you could take your picture by. They even had red traffic lights in the shape of hearts!
We decided to park our van and just walk around the city for a bit. We found a giant bookstore with a cafe (similar to Barnes and Noble back in the States), we got some coffee and sat in the bookstore for a couple hours reading and people watching.
Grafarkirkja
Grafarkirkja is the oldest church in Iceland. It is still operational as far as we can tell, and was such a beautiful sight to see!
Borðeyri Campground
Our stop tonight was another great campground spot with wonderful views! This campsite had some extremely territorial birds though. There were Arctic Terns nesting around the campground. The first spot we parked our van at, we found ourselves attacked almost immediately when we got out of the car. You could look up and see them screeching and dive bombing – like something out of a movie! We later learned that they will dive bomb to protect their eggs, which we must have parked right beside. We quickly realized this and moved our van to a different location. Almost like we passed back through an imaginary line, they all settled down again. Amazing! And slightly terrifying…
