Iceland Day 10 – Husavik, Rain and Relaxing

We slept in a bit this morning as planned.  I was up at about 7:00 AM, and headed to the restrooms.  I was surprised at how many more campers were here this morning.  There were actually more cars than campers, and a few “pop-tops”  I think some of the cars, which were parked ner the restrooms, were tent campers, but had elected to sleep in their cars last night because of all of the rain.

It was not raining this morning but it was cloudy.  I actually slept in until 7:00 AM, a whole 30 minutes later than normal.  I admit, and it may sound gross, but with the rain and cold weather, I did not have to go to the bathhouse last night or this morning, the portable urinal did the trick.  Sometimes you just have to take the easy, and in this case, the dry route.

As usual, I worked on writing the blog and enjoyed my coffee. It is peaceful in the mornings. I turned in the camper heater and it was pleasant inside the camper.

I woke Sephanie up around 9:00 AM, and we got ready.  We were planning on having a hot breakfast this morning, so we had left the gas bottle on, I did not want to climb back there again after last night and turn it off.

We boiled some water and made two packets of cheese-flavored instant grits, serving them in our small metal coffee cups.  I actually had to reheat the metal coffee cups in a pan of boiling water, I did not know Stephanie planned to go to the bathhouse until after I had made the grits, and they were getting cold.  They were better than the grits we made the other day, we let them sit longer, and then too long, but they reheated well.

We also had some small raisin muffins along with the leftover opened yogurt from last night when I used the “plain” part of the yogurt as sour cream. And we split a banana.

I headed to the restroom and also took the dirty dishes to wash them in the sinks there, as well as two water bottles.  

We were finally ready to go at about 10:00 AM.   We were driving to the town of Husavik for the day, and it was only about 30 30-minute drive away.

By the time we left, it was more cloudy than it was earlier this morning, we actually thought the sun might come out earlier.  We stopped at the main campground building to use their water hose to fill our small water tank.  We had used some water from it last night and needed to make sure it was full just in case.  We mainly use it for washing hands or dishes, we do not know how clean the plastic bottle is, but we did notice several days ago that the tubing for the water pump was a little slimy feeling, so we thought it best not to use this water for drinking purposes, we use our four water bottles we fill daily for that.  We also turned off the gas to the stove, just to be on the safe side.

On the drive to Husavik, the weather started getting worse and then it started raining.  We were not planning on doing much here today, just walking around and then going to a fish and chips restaurant for lunch, which had great reviews on Google.  On the way into town, we pulled over at a scenic overlook above Husavik.  It was really windy and we could see that the seas were rough, and were glad we had decided not to book a whale-watching tour today, it was cold, rainy, and windy, the perfect no-go trifecta.  We pulled into a small parking lot near the harbor and got dressed for the cold and windy weather.

There was a church near the parking lot and Stephanie wanted to go inside of it to look around.  However, the front door was locked, so we had to abandon that plan, and just take some photos of the outside.

From there, we walked down to the harbor, which was a decent amount of steps down a stairway from street level.  We could see all of the whale-watching boats still in the harbor.  There were several fast rubber-hulled boats parked in the harbor that looked like they held about 30 people.  There were also several old wooden boats that are used for the same purpose.  None of them have anywhere to sit inside, so on a cold and rainy day, it must be a little miserable.

We walked around and found the Whale Museum and gift shop.  We headed inside, mainly to get warm.  Of course, we bought a few items that Stephanie wanted, the main one being a small stuffed puffin keychain that she could attach to her backpack with the other travel animals she has collected.

We decided to do the museum tour, it cost 2,500 ISK per person.  It was pretty interesting.  They had a lot of information about the evolution of whales, which was very informative. Then there was a section on early whaling in Iceland, and finally a section on efforts now to protect the whales.   There was also a full-size real skeleton of a Blue Whale that had washed ashore on a beach in Iceland and was preserved, which is a rather lengthy and detailed process.  Upstairs were several different whale skeletons, all of which were real except one.  These were also preserved from whales that had beached themselves and died.

After the museum, we walked to a Vinboutin store to get some wine, not that we needed it, but they are not open on Sundays at all, and in most locations, do not open on Monday until late in the afternoon, so we were just stocking up for the closure period.  We dropped off the wine and our backpacks at the camper and then headed to lunch.

I had read many reviews on a place here that was supposed to serve “the best fish and chips in all of Iceland”, so we headed there. It was right in the harbor area, so we had to go down all of the steps again, ouch.  The cold and rainy weather was not doing my knees any favors.

We saw what we thought was a take-out window and a sign that said sitting inside was upstairs, so we headed upstairs.  Well, there was no restaurant service upstairs, everything was ordered at the “take-out” window, and upstairs was just a place to eat inside to get out of the weather.  Down the stairs we went to order our food, ouch again.  

Stephanie waited for the food to cook while I went back upstairs to get us a table.  The fish and chips were really good, our only complaint was that it was too much food. We saw they had a 1/2 order, and we should have gotten one of those and one full size order, it would have been more than enough.  The fish was in smaller pieces, each separately fried, and it was cooked perfectly  I think I read it was supposed to be cod, which is a typical fish used for fish and chips. Of course, it was served with french fries.

After lunch, we went to a store called Arctic Ice, and they sold clothing for cold weather, imagine that.   It was right across the street from the church we had visited earlier.  As we walked past the church after leaving the harbor area, we saw a sign on the side that was the entrance to the church.  For some reason, they were not using the front door for entry.  We headed inside to look around.  There were a few people inside and one person was playing the piano, and he was really good.  We stayed for a few minutes and then left, heading to the Arctic Ice store across the street.  It was a nice store, but we did not find anything we wanted, so we headed back to the camper.

We were in a bit of a dilemma, it was really raining hard and the wind had increased even more than it had been this morning.  There was a geothermal spa right north of town, so we headed that way, thinking it might be a nice place to visit on such a raw weather day. We first filled up with fuel and then headed to the thermal spa.  It was near the shore, but well above the sea.  By now, it was really raining and the wind was buffeting the camper in the parking lot of the spa.  We discussed what we wanted to try and do from here seeing how bad the weather was getting. 

Our campground we had selected for tonight was north of Husavik and located on a bluff above the sea, similar in location to the spa we were at right now.  While we were sitting in the spa parking lot, we read some reviews about the campground we wanted to stay in tonight trying to decide what to do.  It was supposed to have a spectacular view, especially at sunset, but we knew we were not going to see a setting sun tonight with all of the rain.  One review said that it was a great place to stay on a nice day, but brutally cold and windy when the weather was bad, and today’s weather was bad.  It was disappointing because there were two areas near the campsite that were known for being able to see Puffins, and we were trying to go there specifically to find some to see.  

In the end, we knew it was just not going to happen with the bad weather, so instead of going to the spa in Husavik, we opted to head south to the Mytavn Lake area and go to a geothermal spa there, the Mytavn Geothermal Spa.  It is similar to the famous Blue Lagoon near Reykjavik, but somewhat smaller, and much less expensive.  It was part of tomorrow’s plan, but we were just going to go earlier, and it was better that we were going to the spa later in the day today versus in the morning if we tried tomorrow.

We left Husavik and drove south for about an hour.  As we headed south, the weather improved and we actually saw glimpses of blue sky.

We made it to the Mytavn Geothermal Spa at about 3:15 PM, and gathered up our bathing suits and towels, and headed inside.  There was a short line to pay, and we were given some brief instructions on the facilities there. We had to each go to our separate locker rooms to change and use a keyed locker.  We met outside the locker area and headed to the warm pool with our towels and wearing our flip-flop shower shoes.  There were hooks for the towels and then just a large pile of shoes where people had taken them off before going onto the thermal pool, and we did the same.

It was a nice experience, and we found that if you stayed closer to some platforms around the perimeter, the water was much warmer, there was some type of system inside the platforms to pump hot water into the large natural pools.  There were two main pools with gravel bottoms about 3 feet deep.  The water was a milky blue color just like the Blue Lagoon Spa. 

There were rock benches around the perimeters of each pool in some areas.  There was also another much smaller concrete basin that was filled with water a few degrees warmer than the pool.  We soaked on those for a bit after spending about an hour in the other pools.  There was a table set up with water and cups, so Stephanie got us a couple of glasses of water to drink while we were in the hotter concrete “tub”.  

We had been here long enough, we did not want to get too dehydrated, it was easy in the warm water, especially with the cold air.  They had some natural steam rooms, but we did not go onto those, we thought that would just be too much time spent in warm areas.

We headed into our separate locker rooms to shower off the calcium water from the pool.  This was also going to be our shower for the evening, so it took a little time.  In the men’s side, there was a communal shower with about 6 heads.  I started there first, but the way it worked, you kept having to push a knob to keep the shower on, about every 15 seconds, and that was a pain.  Also, the temperature was set.  There were also two individual showers, and I saw they had separate control knobs for hot and cold water, so I moved into one of those, and it was much nicer, the water flow was better and I could adjust the temperature to my liking, and it stayed on.

After drying off and getting dressed, I headed out of the locker room to the shoe storage racks.  We had to remove our shoes before going into the locker rooms to help control dirt on the floors.  This space was jammed with people putting on and taking off shoes.  I was finally able to get a seat in a chair, and that made it easier to put on my socks and shoes.

Several minutes later, Stephanie came out of her locker room and put on her shoes.  By that time, there was hardly anyone in the shoe change area.  We gathered up all of our belongings and headed outside to the camper van.  There was a long line of people in line paying to get in, it appeared this was a tour group because a guide was directing them to the people that you paid working behind the counter.

Now we had to decide on a campground.  I had originally picked several in this area.  I had planned on staying here when I did some of the preliminary routing, mainly heading in the other direction.  However, there were quite a few complaints about flying bugs in areas near the lake.  We had actually bought bug nets to wear over a rain hat just for this area.

We decided to stop at the campground right on the lake and check it out, especially the bug situation.  The flying bugs are small, and do not bite, but apparently can be a little annoying.  We had seen a few when we had stopped at a scenic overlook before going to the thermal spa.

We pulled in and headed to the reception area.  but we decided to look at the campground and check it out first, then register and pay.  We drove into the designated camping area and saw signs that only tents were allowed on the grassed areas, and campers had to park on the asphalt areas that were marked out with lines for the spaces, just like a parking lot.  Some asphalt areas had electrical hookups, some did not.

We found a nice spot right at the end of one section with a great view of the lake.  Stephane decided to walk over to the reception while I waited in the camper to hold the spot we liked.  We were not sure if all the spots were open, maybe some were reserved.  She came back a short time later, there was no one at reception until 6:00 PM.  There were instructions that said to pick your space and come back after they were open to pay.  

We backed the camper into our preferred spot and hooked up the electricity.  There were a few bugs, but there was also a good breeze, and maybe that was helping to keep them away.  We were not far from the bathhouse, and a little farther from the cooking area with sinks for cleaning dishes.

There were quite a few people setting up tents in the large grassed area right next to the lake.  Our spot was higher up, and a good distance away from them and we had a good view of the lake over them.  

Then, a large van pulling a trailer came toward us and pulled over along the grass not far away.  We were hoping it was not going to park there permanently, they were now blocking our view.  We never found out because they started to unload a lot of camping gear and set it off to the side.  There were about 14 people in the van, and they were all getting out to grab all of the gear that was being unloaded from the covered trailer, and taking it to the grass area right between us and the lake.  One of the other groups of tents that were set up farther away also seemed to be together because they were all setting up their tents in two rows, equally spaced apart.  Now with the addition of the second group, we were concerned that the small bathhouses would be very crowded.

We decided to leave because of the large groups of campers and try another campground that I had also picked out that was a bit farther down the road.  It was farther from the lake, not on the lakefront, so maybe it wouldn’t be as popular, or as buggy 

We had a hard time getting out of the campground, the road into the campsites was only wide enough for one vehicle for some reason.  We had to stop and allow about 5 other campers into the campsite area before we could get out.  Obviously, this campground is very popular, maybe because it was on the lake, but we live on a lake, so it was not that big of a deal for us.  Being in a crowded, and possibly buggy campground did not sound appealing to us at all.

We drove a few kilometers to the other campsite, and at first, it looked small, and we could not see a lot of electrical hookups, but there were some.   Stephanie went inside to pay and came out a few minutes later.  It was ironic that there was also another group of campers, and they were also all riding in a van with a trailer for their gear.  There must be some tours that take people camping in groups, we had not seen this in any of the other places we stayed, so it must be something about this area. 

We rode up one road and did not find a spot we liked.  There was supposed to be another bathhouse in the campground, but we couldn’t see it.  Stephanie walked over a hill while I waited in the camper.  She came back and said there was another large area of campsites on the other side of the hill, and more bathhouses, so we headed that way.  We found a nice spot and pulled in.  There were a lot of spaces with electric outlets, and most were in gravel areas, but we pulled into one grassed area, not sure we were supposed to park there on the grass, but no one was out there to tell us differently.

After getting out and trying to figure out the wind direction, we moved the camper to a slightly different spot so we could block the wind and still have a view of the lake in the distance.  This campground was also surrounded by an old lava flow on one side, so we also had a view of that.  More importantly, we were very isolated and it was peaceful and quiet.  This campground was huge, and it was nice to find such an isolated spot. We were glad we had moved to this campground.

We got our chairs and table out and set it up to sit in and enjoy some wine and the peaceful view.  It was getting quite cloudy, and there was some breeze, but it was not too windy to try and fly the drone.  We have not been able to use it much lately with all of the rain and wind.  When I turned on the controller, it indicated we were near an airport and it was restricted.  I was not planning on flying but a few feet off the ground, just to get some photos of the lava field, and of us at our camping spot.  We were not sure where the airport was, but later, we were looking on the Google Map of the area and the airport was right behind us.  All we could see were some tall hills, at least a hundred feet higher than we were, so the airport must have been on top of a flat area on those hills.

It was getting colder out, and even with a blanket for our laps, we were getting cold, so we headed inside and turned on our heater.  In a bit, we cooked dinner, which was simple tonight, we had Ramin Soup to warm us up, along with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, followed by some cookies for dessert.

Stephanie took the few dishes we had to the sinks between the bathhouse for dishwashing.  We were only about 100 feet from the bathhouse, and although it looked a little rough on the outside, it was nice and was very clean on the inside, and was decent in size, especially for the few people we had in this section of the campground.  By this time, it was starting to rain a little.  We had hoped the rain would stay north since it had been nicer when we arrived here earlier in the afternoon, but not so.

Stephanie worked on her Facebook post while I worked on the blog, trying to keep up. 

We were tired tonight, probably because of the time we spent in the hot springs.  We made up the bed and headed off to sleep at about 10:30 PM.

 

More to come, time to sleep