Brenna Abroad

The four of us decided to head a little north on day 10 to visit Gjáin. But first, since we were already in Flúðir, I wanted to check out a tiny hot spring Anthony and I had visited last time, Hrunalaug. I had read shortly after our first visit that some tourists had trashed the place and that people should stop visiting, so my purpose was to just see it and snap a couple pictures. But as we got closer, we noticed there were a couple small signs showing people how to get there which seemed odd if the owners didn’t really want tourists there anymore. And then we arrived, and it looked like the little “changing room” part had been kind of rebuilt and looked nice.

A different couple was leaving as we got there. The boys decided they didn’t feel like getting in, but after seeing it, Theresa and I made the decision to change and hop in. I have to say, it was my favorite hot spring of the trip. It’s definitely tiny, and I could see how groups of disrespectful tourists could trash it, but having it to ourselves that morning was wonderful.

Afterward, the drive up to Gjáin included another awful gravel road, but fortunately we only had to stay on it around 3.5 km. At one point, I had to hop out and open a gate for the cars to get through, and shortly thereafter, we saw a few cars parked. As much as I like having places to myself, I was kind of happy there were other cars there because otherwise, I would have had no idea where to go.  We pulled up and looked over the edge down into this beautiful little valley filled with small waterfalls and rivers.

We climbed down and started exploring. It’s a relatively small area, but it’s the kind of place that you just want to keep climbing up cliffs and crossing rivers.

I had seen it referred to as a “magical little fairyland” before, and while we didn’t notice any fairies, I thought it was an apt description. If fairies exist, they live in Gjáin.

During our explorations, we would randomly run into each other or see each other across the way, making for a fun little game of hide and seek.

We eventually saw some darker clouds moving our way, and since we weren’t wearing our waterproof gear, we decided it was probably time to stop playing around and find our way back to our car.

Four river crossings later, we were climbing back up the steep hill to where we parked. We had planned to visit nearby Haifoss, the second tallest waterfall in Iceland, but as we were all tired of those terrible roads and had seen our fair share of waterfalls already, we decided to skip out. Instead, we drove just a couple more minutes and crossed a footbridge to visit the Viking-era longhouse, Stöng, which was an interesting little stop.

We ended up at the campground in Hveragerði for the the evening and killed some time by walking around the tiny town.

We decided to go to the local pizzeria and brewery for dinner which was really pleasant. Eating out and drinking out are both very expensive in Iceland, but this place was reasonable, and we even splurged on a couple of beers. After “roughing it” for the past over-a-week, it was nice to take it easy and treat ourselves a little bit.

But then we ventured back in the rain and climbed up into our damp top-tent for our final night of camping. After I had shivered all night long a few nights, I had bought some hand-warmers to put in my socks at night, but I was all out of those, so I was afraid I would be back to shivering all night again, but I managed to stay cozy enough.

The following day, we did the hike to the Reykjadalur hot river. The way there was uphill (and pretty steep, I might add), and it was rainy, and overall, not the most pleasant of hikes.

It took around an hour to reach it, but fortunately, we had beat the crowds. We found a spot that seemed the right temperature for us, changed into our swimsuits and climbed in.

It’s definitely a cool place, but after all the other hot springs we had visited, it was a little lack-luster.

Getting back out into the cold rain and changing was pretty miserable, but after a few minutes, we were marching back (downhill this time) to our car. The walk back took about 40 minutes. If you have bad knees, it would be pretty difficult due to the steep decline.

At last, we made our way back to Reykjavik and bought some ice cream to kill a bit of time before checking into our AirBnb.

We walked the 15 minutes back to our new little apartment, which was close to the harbor. The AirBnB was lovely, and felt like we were living in luxury after camping 9 nights. We all had a chance to take nice, hot showers and not freeze to death afterward, and then got ready to go out to dinner. There was a nice Indian restaurant not far away, so Ty got to eat Indian food for the first time (he had a lot of firsts on this trip, not all of them as pleasant as Indian food) which I can proudly say he is now a fan of.

Since it was our last night in Iceland, we decided we needed to grab a beer afterward. There was an Irish pub we had seen earlier called The Drunk Rabbit that looked like a good time. So for our last night in Iceland, we ate Indian food and drank beer at an Irish pub because why not. There was a large wheel behind the bar. Theresa asked about it, ended up paying a couple bucks to spin it, and it was looking like it was going to land on one of the many “Bad Luck” slots, but after a second delay, it ticked over one more slot into “6x Heineken,” so our decision to have a beer turned into a small party at The Drunk Rabbit.

We giddily walked back to our apartment after, getting lost along the way. We hung out listening to music until bedtime, anticipating an exhausting day of travels ahead.

Cheers to the countless memories that were created in Iceland, on our second trip to this beautiful country. Who knows if we’ll be back… There are so many wonderful places to visit on this planet… but we still haven’t gotten to see the Westfjords of Iceland ;).

We caught sunrise at Seljalandsfoss (which, by the way, the path got closed down the day after we left due to dangerous rockfalls) and checked out Gljúfrabúi once more before moving on.

And now, I think it’s time to share the story of the windshield.

When we picked up our rental car, we looked it over in the rain, determined it was good, and started heading out. We had just left the parking lot when I discovered about a 6 inch crack in the bottom middle of the windshield. So I had Anthony turn the car around to go alert them to it, afraid it was going to spread. They came out, said it was just a surface scratch and that they’d write it down, and that now we had “extra” gravel protection because a broken windshield is a broken windshield, no matter how broken it is. We accepted this and moved on.

On the second day of our roadtrip, though, we discovered it had somehow grown another 6 inches. We had been bouncing around on some rough gravel roads, but were still going well below the speed limit and definitely did not have any rocks come up and hit the windshield, so this did not bode well for the rest of our adventurous vacation. I learned I was skeptical of the “extra gravel protection” claim.

On the third day of our roadtrip, we had to go on that crazy awful road to Asbyrgi, and the crack grew another 6 inches. After this, I started cringing and second-guessing any gravel road we had to go on.

So on the eighth day of the roadtrip, we planned to go to Landmannalaugar. Landmannalaugar is in the highlands of Iceland, and most of the way there is on F roads (rough mountain roads).

It started out ok. Somehow the first F road was paved, and my spirits were high. But then we got on F208. The road seemed to just disappear at times and had washboard gravel/potholes the majority of the way. When it wasn’t washboard-teeth-chattering gravel, it was massive potholes that tossed around everything in the car. We were going about a quarter the speed limit. And so about halfway to Landmannalaugar, I very much wanted to back out and turn back to paved roads. Anthony, on the other hand, had the mindset that we had already driven all the way, we might as well finish it. I finally agreed, and we continued on.

At last we made it. I wasn’t going to risk crossing the river, so we parked in the first parking lot before it.

And I have to say, I think Landmannalaugar is probably worth that hellish drive. I’ve always thought that the pictures I had seen must be photoshopped like crazy or have some kind of filter, because they always look like paintings. But that is literally what the mountains look like in person – like paintings. I’ve never seen anything like them.

We also spent some time in the natural hot springs there on site. You can pay for a day pass at the office and use their facilities to change, but most people just strip down and change right at the water.

There was a cool river joining up with some crazy hot streams and it created a nice little balance.

We had planned to camp there that night, but since I have been freezing at night anyway, I wasn’t sure camping in the highlands was the best idea. And I have a cold. So after some time, we hopped back in the car to head back.

I was less nervous on the way back, so we enjoyed the views some more.

There were a couple lovely lakes on the way.

We ate at a delicious Ethiopian restaurant in Flúðir before driving a couple minutes to the “Secret Lagoon.” It’s not exactly secret, but it is less busy than the Blue Lagoon and was a pleasant soak, and I got a nice shower and a chance to blow dry my hair (!!!) out of the deal. When you’re camping in cold temperatures, it’s nice to have dry hair, so that alone was probably worth the price.

We met back up with Ty and Theresa and hung out at the campground, drinking some wine and sharing our stories from the day.

The windshield crack did not grow at all that day.

 

It broke my heart a little bit leaving our little heaven at Þakgil, but we enjoyed every minute of the drive back to the Ring Road, stopping to explore areas that caught our interest.

Our little Jimny climbed up and down that mountain like a beast, and I almost wished the drive was longer.

We stopped to get views of Vik as well as the lighthouse at Dyrholaey to catch the views out over the black sand beaches.

And then it was waterfall time. We stopped at Skogafoss first, joining the small crowds there.

And then we climbed the billion stairs up to the top, which really doesn’t give you a great view of Skogafoss or anything.

But walking along the river at the top does. Lots of little waterfalls and canyons along the way.

You also get a view out over the plains. I decided to repeat a picture that we took on our first trip here.

Once we were tired of walking, we headed back down and drove to find neighboring Kvernufoss. I had coordinates for finding Kvernufoss, but they somehow took us to someone’s house. I was determined, however, and had Anthony park the car, so we could go walk around to find it. He teased me about how hard I was trying to find this waterfall, after the hundreds we had already seen.

We found a little path with a ladder over a fence which seemed like a good option.

We walked through a field and decided we would go as far as this hill up ahead so we could see around it. Once we got there, we found a river. Another good sign. So we kept walking.

And there she was. We followed the tiny path all the way to the waterfall, and it may have become my new favorite. We had it all to ourselves, and it was tall, you could walk behind it, and it hammered the rock underneath it. I decided it was “our” waterfall, and my new happy place. If only I could just come back there anytime I wanted.

We grabbed a bite to eat, and then off we went to Seljavalaug, the warm swimming pool in the beautiful valley. We enjoyed the walk over there, but got there to discover the pool had just been emptied. It would have been a beautiful day for a swim too.

We continued on to our campground for the evening, Hamragarðar, which is right next to Seljalandsfoss. This was another shock for us, since our last visit to Iceland, we had beautiful Seljalandsfoss all to ourselves, and it was my favorite place in the world at the time. It was still absolutely magnificent, but the parking lot was overfilled with tour buses and cars this time. Either way, I still enjoyed it.

What I enjoyed more, though, was little Gljúfrabúi, which was directly in front of our camping spot. This waterfall falls behind a cliff, but has a hidden entrance to the side. You have to walk through a stream to get to it, but once you’re in there, you just get soaked by the waterfall staring all the way up it and the mossy walls around it. It was gorgeous. Unfortunately, our GoPro decided it didn’t feel like taking good pictures in there.

We had reunited with my brother and his fiance at this point, so we all hung out, cooked some dinner in the kitchen area, climbed up the cliff to look down into Gljúfrabúi, and caught up on each other’s travels. All in all, a pretty successful day.