Iceland Addition--we stray beyond the Golden Circle

Our stay in Europe over, we decided to have one last adventure on our way home. We booked our flights through Iceland Air (least expensive choice anyway) and arranged for a 2 night/1 day stopover in Reykjavik.

 

 

We had no problems with our flight and arrived around 9:30 pm Icelandic time. (Which was 11:30 pm Swedish time.) It was still COMPLETELY light outside. We went to the taxi line. The first guy had a full-size sedan. Behind him were several vans. I figured the first guy would pass on us-- 4 people with TONS of luggage (4 large suitcases, 3 rolling carry-on bags, 3 backpacks and a laptop bag) but he said he could take us and proceeded to squeeze it all into his trunk. It took a bit of work and he had to bungee cord the trunk closed, but he got us and all our stuff to our hotel-- just about 15 minutes away.



Exploring Kevlavik at 10 pm.

The harbor in Kevlavik

We had reservations at A. Bernhard Bed and Breakfast in Kevlavik. When we got there I found a door but it just looked like someone's house door so I wasn't sure whether I should go in. It did have Visa and Mastercard stickers on it.... so I stuck my head in and called "hello" and the owner emerged. He was rather surprised at our huge amounts of luggage for a two night stay! The main house just had two guest rooms that shared a bathroom. We rented the studio apartment-- it was in the yard of the main house-- like a detached garage. It had its own bathroom, a big queen bed, a sofa bed, table and chairs, and small kitchenette. It was very clean and nicely decorated and wonderfully quiet. It also had a cute patio set out front, but we never used that. It was so windy all the time. Breakfast was included and they did that by just stocking the refrigerator and cupboards with breakfast food-- like Swedish breakfast-- hard boiled eggs, vegetables, lunch meat, cheese and various bread for sandwiches, Yogurt and Muesli, fruit, juice and even some cereal and milk. We really liked that arrangement because then we could just eat as we woke up-- and we could also have a midnight snack. It was a nice place and the owner's were very nice. We went for a short walk down to the harbor simply because it was still SO light and then we went back to our room and crashed.

Wednesday morning, the owner of the Bed and Breakfast gave us a lift back to the airport to pick up our rental car. We had ordered a large SUV-- simply to be able to haul all our luggage back to the airport and because we thought the kids would enjoy having lots of space and good visibility since we'd be driving all day. We found it funny to have the rental car girl explain that we weren't allowed to ford rivers in it-- other than that, off-road trails were fine. That struck us as funny with rental car. When we said, we weren't really planning on doing any off-roading, she replied, "Why not? It's fun." :-) My husband asked her where the nearest good volcano to see was and she circled a spot on the map called Baula and we were off. We also rented a GPS because when we'd turned ours on in the morning we'd found it didn't have any maps for Iceland. It has North America and Europe but no Iceland. How does that work?

I should mention that we woke up to torrential rain. That was not promising but we were told that they expected it to clear out by afternoon. . The volcano was beyond the distance I'd investigated so we thought we'd head out there first and then gradually work our way back (hopefully with better weather). We did make a few stops that I'd researched on our way out. We stopped at some small lava caves (Mariuhellar Caves in the Heiðmörk Nature Reserve--just outside Hafnarfjörður). 

Mariuhellar Caves

We also stopped at Þingvellir (Thingvellir) National Park. It is right on the fault line that is the geological boundary between North America and Europe. We walked (or more ran) through the hard, horizontal rain to see some of that. It was a really pretty area-- crazy rock falls with lots of waterfalls. It would have been a lovely place to go for a nice hike if the weather had been better. We learned that umbrellas are useless in Iceland. They just blow inside out. Instead we just put on the hoods of our windbreakers and went for it. We had all worn long pants, sweat shirts and then a wind breaker over the top-- and gloves and hats-- trying to be warm without a huge amount of bulk (since we wouldn't be needing coats for some time after we left Iceland) It worked but warmer would have been nice. We were rather jealous of the people with windjacket pants--or parkas and snowpants! We were all thoroughly drenched after that stop and had to hang our windbreakers up in the car to dry as we drove on. 
 

Þingvellir (Thingvellir)--Sorry, the rain kept us from getting many pictures here.

 We'd debated taking the main road or a trail on the map to the volcano area. We opted to just let the GPS decide and thought, based on the rough gravel road with multiple one-lane bridges, that it had picked the trail.

  It was a beautiful, interesting area, so we were fine with that. We figured we could take the main road back. But as we continued on, I watched road names and realized this WAS the main road. Hmmm....Along the way, we saw some steam coming off a little creek and stopped to check it out. There was a small geothermal power station that was pouring its overflow into the creek. We played around there in the warm steam for a while. We found how far downstream you had to go to be able to put your hand in the water. It was a fun little stop. We also saw tons of incredible scenery and lots of cute sheep. The whole area you feel like you are on a movie set. Even the teens--who generally aren't big fans of car trips-- were enthralled

Yes, this is the "main" road. Wasn't marked any different on our

 map than the divided highway.

Ah, pavement again.

When the GPS got us to the name the rental car lady gave us, we could see a ravine and creek and some waterfalls, but nothing of the volcano crater that had been described to us. We were a bit disappointed but after looking around a bit decided we'd just have to head back to our other planned sites. 
 

Pretty, but where is the volcano?

This was the farthest north we got-- not quite the Arctic Circle but close!

A few minutes down the road, we saw an info spot, pulled over to look at the map and discovered that we had found our volcano, Grabrokargigum. And it was really cool. It had erupted 3000 years ago and there were three craters and these huge hillsides of lava rocks. We followed the trails up through the lava to the tops of the craters. It was a really cool view. By then the rain had stopped but it was REALLY windy up on top with no wind break.

 

Climbing up the volcano crater

Check out all the lava rock

There were several of these-- I haven't been able to find out what they are from.

View from the top looking back to the parking area.

One of the craters

Another crater

A nice view of the pathway we walked on along the ridge of the crater

With all of our stops, it worked out rather perfectly. We'd walk around and look until we were cold and happy to get back into the nice warm car for a while. So we really didn't mind the driving time.

From there, it was a few hours drive back the way we'd come (since there wasn't a better road). We still saw new things because the clouds had cleared so we were able to see mountain ranges we hadn't even known were there. P.lus, everything looked a bit different in the sunlight.

Waterfalls everywhere!

Mountains we didn't know were there.

A cool fault area

Then it was down some new road to Geysir. Geysir is the geyser that all the other geysers are named after. There is a nice geothermal area like some of those in Yellowstone-- hot pools and smalls geysers. 

The biggest, Geysir, used to erupt regularly but in the last 50 years it has become less and less active (now just 1-2 times a day) so we didn't see it go. There is another, though, Stokkur, that erupts about every 5 minutes. We saw it go as we walked up to it, then stood next to the rope fencing it off to take some pictures. No one was standing right by us, but we thought that was because they didn't want to be in the sulfur steam. Then, right after my husband snapped a picture of the other 3 of us, the thing blew and totally sprayed us with water-- it was a bit warm but didn't burn us. My daughter and I were wet all the way up our back sides. My son reacted fast to the noise and didn't get a drop on him.One thing to mention, none of these sites had admission fees, parking fees, etc. Even though they are the main tourist attractions in Iceland, the volume of tourists was so much smaller than what we've experienced other places. It was really fun. We had lunch at the cafe overlooking the geysers-- largely because we weren't sure where else we'd find to eat. It is a very uninhabited country. Then we drove another 10 minutes to Gullfoss.

Gullfoss is a huge, beautiful waterfall. It has several levels and as you walk along the trail, you see more and more of it. They let you walk down along the ravine to a overlook right in the mist. We got good and wet (again). I thought it was at least as impressive as Niagara Falls and the atmosphere was a million times better. 

Standing on the lower overlook

Rainbow over the falls

You can see a person in the mist on the overlook where we were.

From this view you can see all the major sections of the falls

In this shot you can see people at both the high and low overlooks.

From the parking lot at Gulllfoss, we could see a huge glacier on the mountains in the distance. So, of course, we decided we had to get closer to the glacier. 
 

Glacier calling to us from the distance

All the map showed were little trails going out that way, so we decided to try one. It was pretty rough and pothole filled, and the terrain looked like the surface of Mars. Nothing but tundra type ground and if you looked close, little patches of phlox. Very cool. 

So this is a "trail"

Big puddle not a river crossing, right?

Surface of Mars

Life on Mars

But when we got to the end of the road-- a dry lake bed-- the glacier was still across a river and behind a mountain. We could see a little white through a crack in the mountain. At first we thought we were glimpsing the glacier, then we realized it was another waterfall.
 

Dead end-- no glacier

We looked at the GPS map and found another trail farther up the main road that it showed running right onto the glacier so off we went to try that one. 

Back down the trail we go

It took about 45 minutes of more rough driving, but we did find the glacier. Unfortunately, the trail looked like no one had been down it since winter-- it was a disaster. 

Getting into the snow

Snowmobiles-- just left sitting in the middle of nowhere until next winter?

There was one little lodge out here for snowmobilers-- not open now of course.

 So we parked and walked the last couple kilometers. We learned that glaciers are like mirages-- they look a lot closer than they are. We'd think "Just down this hill and we'll be here" then suddenly you'd see a whole new rock field or snow patch to cross. But once we'd gotten that far, we couldn't give up without standing on the glacier. The terrain was crazy. Weird squishy stuff that looked the same wet or dry. You never knew when you'd sink into the mud. The rocks were all light volcanic rock so boulders that looked immovable would roll when you stepped on them. Quite the adventure. I should point out that while it had been around 10 C most of the day, as we neared the glacier it got colder and colder, so this trekking was done at 2 C. We felt very successful when we finally reached a point with continuous snow.

It doesn't look too far away.

Not taking the truck down here

Boulder fields

And we are on the glacier!

 This was, Langjökull, the second largest glacier in Iceland and just extended out forever-- like a giant frozen sea. And yes, we were the only people out there. Our son, in particular, loved this little adventure. He's the one that has always wanted to go to Alaska. He said it was as cool as Africa which is pretty high praise.

As we hiked back to the truck, the fog descended on us. We'd planned to take a fun picture of our truck sitting all alone on the hill waiting for us but the world turned white and we couldn't see more than a few feet in front of us. We were happy to get back to our vehicle. It was around 10 pm at this point so we figured we'd better head for home. As we came out of the mountain, the fog lightened up and we had a nice drive back to Kevlavik, watching the sun get low in the sky.

Terrible windshield shot but you can see wisps of geothermal activity all over this valley

 Since it was getting late, we skipped the coastal road and the Blue Lagoon and just took the shortest way back. We got to our hotel half an hour after midnight. By then the sun had set but it was still light. We were all pretty beat and fell into bed. It had been a really nice day.

Getting back to town after midnight. The sun would rise again at 3 am but we weren't awake to see that.

Thursday morning we took us and our luggage back to the airport, dropped off the now VERY dirty Ford Expedition and continues our journey to the U.S. We would definitely recommend Iceland to any outdoor-minded people. So many cool things to see and so few people! Just dress really, really warm-- even in summer.