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