Day 10: The Driving Comes To An End

It seemed like a busy day today, luckily I got to relax here at the Blue Lagoon at the end to soak away the stress!

I began the day with a pleasant hearty breakfast at my guesthouse to get my day started. A wee different than my usual coffee and oatmeal prepared over a Bunsen burner in the wind break of my car. What a treat! That set me up nicely for my 6 mile Reykjadular Hot River hike in Hveragerði.  

There's supposed to be a nice confluence of hot & cold water here at the end and its very popular for soaking but the air was a bit too brisk for me!

A short drive later and I found the super cool Raufarhólshellir Lava Cave. It's a "go-at-your-own-extreme-risk" kind of adventure but I came prepared!

It's almost a mile long, beginning with 3 large caverns with big piles of snow from where the ceiling has caved in; then it descends to an eerie ice stalagmite field - water dripping from above has frozen  into very large upside-down icicles in the frigid temp!

                     See how big they are?

Caution overcame my curiosity and that's as far as I ventured. The footing was treacherous with ice and razor sharp lava rock, it was getting darker inside, and even if I had functioning ligaments in my ankle I think I still would have turned around. But it was way super cool!

It was time to start circling around the Reykjanes Peninsula to finish off my driving portion of my Iceland vacation at KEF airport to drop the car off. Just a couple more sights to see:

      

                 The Seltun geothermal area

                  Gunnuhver - largest mud spring in Iceland with one angry plume going. Soaked my car in ....?

               And the Bridge Between Two Continents. It's supposed to join the two tectonic plates, it really just covers a gravelly ditch but it's fun to think of.

And then the Blue Lagoon! It's a big production to get in - reservations are pretty much mandatory, then there was still a huge queue to get in. A struggle to find an empty locker, and a 5-minute wait just to use the shower before getting in! But aahhh, once you're in! All your cares soak away. I bellied right up to the pool bar, had myself a red wine and a facial mask, and Life Was Good.

I've 3 nights / 2 days based in Reykjavik now. I wonder what I'll get up to there?

Gunner bet

Bridge 2vm per year 

Day 9: The Golden Circle

Outside of the Blue Lagoon, the most popular tourist attraction in Iceland is the Golden Circle circuit. As seen on the map above, it encompasses a good bit of driving giving day-package sightseers a good dose of countryside that includes 3 typically Icelandic features: a huge waterfall, a geyser, and an awesome display of plate tectonics & volcanic activity with a dose of history thrown in. Seeing it was so popular, I had to fight the crowds a bit more today, and saw a greater number of tour buses on the road, but nothing too frustrating. I still didn't see a single stop sign all day. There's such minimal traffic in Iceland there's only yield signs - even when getting onto the highway!

Geysir was the first stop for me. It's no great leap to figure out that's where our word "geyser" comes from. There's a little hot bed of hot springs activity there. Unfortunately the grand daddy spring, Geysir himself, has rarely been active since being plugged up with well-wishers' loose change about 50 years ago (or so the story goes), so the main action was over at Strokkur who pops to life every few minutes. It was fun to try to capture the whole sequence...

Next: Gullfloss. The roaring Hvítá River rages down a small series of steps before plunging over two consecutive ledges before disappearing from view, only to be seen later rushing thru a narrow canyon. At least, that's what I think I saw. The wind was so fierce I had tears running down my cheeks and my pant legs were whapping me hard like a Turkish massage. It was difficult just holding the camera steady. I had hoped to go for a wander upstream to stretch my legs but this wasn't the time nor the place.

And lastly, Thingvellir. A large national park that protects a massive rift valley - ie where North America is tugging its way west from Europe; that also happens to be the sight of Iceland's first (and world's oldest) parliament (held every summer at the base of the cliffs from 930 - 13th C), then was the nation's court of law till 1798. It's pretty impressive...

                  "Hello, America!", from no-mans land....

And that was it. The wind abated and the rain held off so I managed a good 2-hours walking at Thingvellir, so I'm happy with that. The touring was 'lite' and the driving was easy = a good day!

Day 8: Wandering By Waterfalls

These thundering falls are Skógafoss, the termination of what was to have been my 4-day backpacking trip down from the highlands of Iceland. That was one of the first things I booked to do when I decided to come here, long before my sprained ankle threw a wrench into my travel plans. I was quite chuffed therefore that I had left yesterday's storm behind me, and was able to actually walk a bit of that same trail. The trail which happens to start 572 steps up behind the falls - that was a warmup!  This happened to be a hugely scenic part of the Laugavegur Trail as it was full of waterfalls - 20 in fact, I lost count of how many I managed to see...

I only turned around when the path turned too treacherous for me; however, I didn't envy those hikers continuing on as gale force winds and possibly snow were forecast inland! Glad again I wasn't out there in it!

I have guesthouse reservations for the next 2 nights so I only had a short distance to cover today. Waterfalls were the main attraction, plus whatever roadside sights that took my fancy...

Not sure what these are, but the guys brought them from the Czech Republic and were having a devil of a time in the wind

                                   Seljalandfoss

                             which you can walk behind!

                                  Gljúfuárfoss right next door

View of Eyjafjallajokull from my guesthouse - it's the one that erupted in 2010. Luckily the wind blew the ash in the opposite direction so these folks were only displaced 2 days.

Rain is forecast for tomorrow- we'll see what sights I manage in that.

Day 7: Weather For All Sorts

           Last night's neighbours checking me out

Those neighbors I was a bit worried about - would they know to stop 'baa-ing' even if it never got dark? Answer: yes. My other neighbors were a friendly bunch of hikers who camped in a little ravine just over the hill from me - seeking protection from the, luckily, mild wind. They even invited me over for morning tea but i already had my own coffee on. I could have sworn one of the hikers was Elwyn....

I packed up and started out for Skaftafell, a national preserve with great hiking trails and a famous waterfall. I couldn't go more than a mile without pulling over for more roadside pictures. I think I could have used a snap-happy copilot on this trip!

Skaftafell is a highlight for both serious trekkers and coach tourists alike. Trails run from 5km to 2-3 days long. I chose a 7km combination to hit the waterfall and a couple of viewpoints. 

                        Svartifoss 

Turf-covered farm buildings - farmers relocated up the hill in    after devastating  floods

More roadside attractions:

        Cool moss-covered lava stones

            Playing with my Slow Shutter app

                   What a backyard view!

The wind had started blowing quite strongly by the time I took the above snaps, and 20 mins later when I pulled into the Kirkjubaejarklaustur swimming pool parking lot it was grey, drizzly  and blustery. I started to worry about the rental car company's warning about taking out Sand & Ash insurance when driving in this part of the country, but I hadn't planned on being in this part of the country! I'd read reports online of the wind being strong enough to blow off car doors and picking up enough grit to leave the paint job feeling like sandpaper. Hmm. Perhaps I had a quicker soak than usual, and I was back on the road shortly, driving south now in wind and full rain. Ugh.

 Kirkjubaejarklaustur's lava field. This is apparently the world's 2nd greatest lava flow in the last 2000 years. I tried, but couldn't get it all in the picture :-) 

By the time I got to Vik it was blowing a gale with horizontal rain. There isn't much to see in Vik, besides a church on a hill and the woolen goods shop beside the gas station. The two famous black sand beaches with rock pillars and puffins were definitely fair weather attractions. I nabbed a parking spot right outside the wool shop, yet I still had to don my rain jacket, zip it up to the neck, to make the dash to the front door. I lingered there as long as I could for something to do, then dashed across to the gas station which conveniently had a store/diner attached. Cooking dinner on my camp stove was not going to happen tonight in these conditions so I bought myself my first typical Icelandic meal: Kjötsúpa, or lamb soup. It was ...average, but filling and I managed to pass a good hour lingering over my meal and watching the weather outside.

I managed to drive out closer to the beach for a look but the car was being buffeted so badly I took one pic thru the windshield and left. 

Reynisdranger - Famous basalt sea stacks at Vik's black sand beach. Car was shuddering side to side in the gusts.

There are computerized road signs that give the weather conditions of towns ahead and the wind speeds past Vik were all in the danger zone - I'm here for the night. I checked into the local campsite, parked behind a berm, and hunkered down for the night.

                  Comfy car camping!

It really has been a day of weather of all sorts today.