Iceland review - 2015, Qupperneq 58

56 ICELAND REVIEW
Seven minutes!” announced Hörður,
the bus driver. “We will stop seven
minutes here at the Goðafoss water-
fall.” This was the first stop at a natural
site on our two-day, 43-hour, 1,400-km
(900-mile) journey around Iceland.
AFTER MIDNIGHT
It all started a few days earlier when I
heard someone on the radio asking a
Sterna Travel representative about the
Full Circle Passport and the possibility of
traveling around Iceland in just two days,
stopping at some of the country’s most vis-
ited attractions.
“You can do the trip in a month, [get-
ting] on and off our buses, but many more
people than we expected, people with little
time who want to see the best of Iceland,
do the round trip in just two days,” she said.
So why not join them? I thought.
Just after midnight on August 7 the Sterna
bus pulled out from Harpa in Reykjavík.
Two days later, at 7 pm, 43 hours later to
be precise, the bus was back again at Harpa,
after a very interesting round trip.
EARLY MORNING
The first leg of the journey was a 400-
km (250-mile) drive through the night to
Akureyri in the north. By the time the bus
passed through the Hvalfjarðargöng tun-
nel, half an hour after departure, almost all
of the 15 or so passengers had fallen asleep.
They awoke six-and-a-half hours later,
at 6:30 am, when entering the town of
Akureyri. Here we had 90 minutes to
explore the ‘capital of the north’ before
continuing the trip eastward.
It was cold, rainy, and there was not a
TRAVEL
° LEAVING REYKJAVÍK, 12:15 AM, AUGUST 7.
° DETTIFOSS, 11:25 AM, AUGUST 7.
° GOÐAFOSS, 8:38 AM, AUGUST 7.
° EYJAFJÖRÐUR, 7:48 AM, AUGUST 7.
° SYÐRIVOGAR BY MÝVATN, 9:26 AM, AUGUST 7.
° SELFIE AT DETTIFOSS, 11:40 AM, AUGUST 7.
° SELFIE AT GOÐAFOSS, 8:36 AM, AUGUST 7.
° FAGRIDALUR, 4:25 PM, AUGUST 7.
° HVERARÖND, 10:14 AM, AUGUST 7.