I woke up at about 6:15 AM this morning and headed to the bathhouse for a restroom break. Most times at this early of an hour, I hardly see anyone, but today, the campground was abuzz with activity and people were already showering, but there were no lines for the toilets, yet. This campground has gender-separate washrooms, so it is a little more relaxing. Plus, the washrooms are large, and clean.
I was able to charge my computer some using our inverter plugged into the 12V socket. We have used the inverter a couple of times before and it works great. I have had it for a long time and can’t even remember why I bought it in the first place, but I finally was able to take it on a trip and use it, albeit, sparingly.
Our voltage was still over 13V DC on the camper meter when I woke up, so we had plenty of power. The only things using power at night were the two iceboxes and the heater, which we had on low. I made coffee before I left for the bathhouse, and it was still brewing after I returned. The coffee machine is also on the 12 V system, and it pulled down the power a bit as would be expected. I had confidence we were not going to have an issue starting the camper this morning, so I turned on some lights to work on the blog while Stephanie slept in. The coffee seemed to take longer to brew, but it might have been because I made a little fuller of a pot today, but I was not sure about either. I was also not sure how much the heating element in the 12V coffee machine is impacted by the voltage being lower, we have always been plugged in and that charges the batteries to 14.5 V. OK, this is way too technical, but we had survived the night without electricity.
Oh, and the weather was much improved this morning, it was not sunny, but it was partly cloudy and there was no rain.
We made a warm breakfast of instant grits and ate the last of some small muffins, and we split a banana. It was nice to have something warm since we had not run the heat much last night trying to conserve battery power, it was a great lesson, but it was one we learned a little late to help us going forward, we only have a couple of more nights in the camper. We walked to the bathhouse area so I could wash the dishes and Stephanie could visit the restroom. There was a line about three deep waiting to use the sinks in the cooking area, and since we only had two cups with just a little residue from our grits in them, I just took them to the men’s bathroom and washed them there. We walked back to the camper and got ready to leave.
We were ready to go at about 8:45 AM, but we decided to go to the bathhouse area one last time and fill up our water bottles in the kitchen area, we just did not want to walk there again. We found a spot to park and we each went to our respective bathrooms first. There was a freshwater spigot on the outside of the bathhouse building marked as fresh water, so we used that to fill up our water bottles instead of going onto the crowded kitchen area.
With that all done, we headed out of the campground. It had been an interesting experience.
Our first stop was for fuel at the N1 station. It was crowded at the station, there were only four pumps, and it took a bit of time before we were full of diesel fuel and ready to go. We saw an area on the way to the gas station that was a parking lot with access to the Víkurfjara Black Sand Beach, so we went there as our first stop for the day. It was a nice beach, and the black sand was amazing.
The next stop was the Reynisfjara Black Sand Beach. We drove out to the beach, it was about a four-kilometer long drive there from the highway. When we got there, the parking lot was jammed with parked cars and campers, and there were people everywhere. There were no parking spaces and the crowds were unbelievable. It was much too crowded for us, so we left, heading to the next spot on our itinerary. We were hoping that this first stop was not an indication of things to come today, we knew it was going to be more crowded in this part of Iceland since we are so close to Reykjavik, and people can come here on a short stay in Iceland.
We headed to the next site not far down the road. Once again, it was a short drive to the area from the main road to the stop, about 8 Km each way. The stop was at the Dyrhólaey Beach Cliffs Overlook. We had to go up a really steep and winding road to the top parking area which was very small, but someone left just as we arrived and we got a parking spot on the end, making it easy to get into and out later.
The overlook is also the home of a lighthouse. Dyrhólaey is the name of a rock formation on the shoreline, and it is the southernmost point in Iceland. Other than the Dyrhólaey, we did not know exactly what was here when we left the camper to walk around the overlook. It was really beautiful, but I really needed my zoom lens for pictures. It was a good walk back to the camper to get it, and I opted not to go back.
There were birds nesting on the cliffs and flying around, and we are almost positive that some were the elusive puffins we had been trying to see at other locations on this trip. They are quite small, but have a bright orange area on the beaks, making them easier to spot. We did not see any nesting, just flying, so it would have been hard to get a photo up close with them flying so fast and so far away.
On one side of the cliff area was a beautiful black sand beach that stretched for miles. We were looking down the beach from our high-up vantage point and thought we saw a whale blow mist near the shore. Sure enough, it happened again and we could see the whale’s body. Once again, a zoom lens would have been better, but I got a few photos with the lens I had. At times, it looked like there might be two whales, but we were not sure. The whale continued to swim toward us, staying just offshore. We walked further out on the point and were able to get even closer to it as it swam toward us, but the whale was still a couple of hundred feet below us, at least.
Eventually, it got so close that we could not see it with the overhanging cliff we were on. We headed to the tip of the point and took photos of the rock arch that is the
. There were trails and steps going down closer to it, but we knew we had a lot of walking in store for today, and that timewise, we could not go any farther, nor did we really want to. From this point, we could also see the other rock formation from the spot we had not been able to visit at the first stop, it was just farther away, but so were the crowds there.
We headed back to the camper and left to head to our next destination, the Sólheimajökull Glacier. It was about 45 minutes away and we arrived at the large parking area. It was really windy here, so we bundled up and headed out to walk to the glacier.
There are tours here for people to actually go out onto the glacier and hike on the ice. We saw several groups of people decked out in special gear, wearing harnesses and helmets, and carrying small ice axes or picks, and crampons to wear on their shoes once they were on the ice.
Once again the description in the Google Reviews was a “short walk” from the parking area to the glacier. Obviously, they use a different definition for “short” in the hiking world, I guess it was short compared to climbing a mountain. The wind was fierce, it had to be blowing at least 30 mph in the gusts, and we were walking straight into it, making the uphill walk even harder. It was almost miserable, but we persevered and made it to the end of the gravel trail. Without the wind, maybe it was a nice walk. There was a group at the end getting ready to go down to the bottom to access the glacier. We could already see some groups up on the glacier and the people looked tiny on the vast expanse of the ice. We took a few photos and left, it was just too windy and cold.
We passed several groups of glacier hikers heading out on our way back to the camper. I thought that it was tough just to hike out to the end of this trail much less to then climb up to the top of the glacier afterward. That ship has sailed for us, that is for younger and stronger-legged people. Even though we thought it was hard walking uphill against the wind, it was almost as hard going the other way. The wind was so strong that it took a lot of leg muscle effort to avoid going too fast downhill and stumbling.
We made it back but were not that impressed with either this glacier or the hike, maybe this was a better stop for people who were here to go hiking out onto the glacier, not just looking at it like we did. This was the only spot we saw or knew of where walking out onto a glacier was even offered.
We got back in the camper and out of the wind and warmed up as we drove onward. The next stop was not that far, it was to visit two different waterfalls, the Kvernufoss and the Skógafoss. They were just a couple of kilometers apart, with different parking areas. The Skógafoss is much larger and we could see it from the road. However, larger also meant more crowded. The Kvernufoss was smaller but it had the distinct feature of being able to walk behind it.
We parked in the pay parking area and used our Parka App to pay. The app already has our camper license plate loaded into it as well as a credit card, so it is quick and easy. The parking fee was 700 ISK.
Again, this was listed as a short walk to the waterfall, and we passed through a gate that was there to keep the sheep we saw nearby inside their field. The path was nice and smooth until we got to the actual falls, where it had some steep sections going up and down in some areas.
There were not too many people at the falls when we finally arrived, and we waited for some of them to move so we could get some good photos of the front side of the falls. Then we headed to go behind the falls, and that trail was a little wet and slippery, but manageable. We waited behind the fallsso we could let the people before us get their photos and then we took ours without any other people in them. The sun was shining through the clouds at times and made for some good shots. Of course, there is always one person wearing something really bright, and today it was a man wearing a bright yellow raincoat, which really sticks out in photos, so we had to wait for him to move out of view a couple of times.
About the time we were getting ready to leave, there was a large group arriving, not as many as on a tour bus, but we had seen several large vans packed with people at other sites we had visited, so they must have been on a van tour with a guide driving them around. We had a tough time getting around them, they would not give us any room to get by.
We walked back to the camper and headed to the nearby museum to use their restrooms. The sign we read about paying the parking fee said the fee included using the restrooms at the museum, and that was exactly what we were going to do. The museum was similar to the one we had visited earlier in the trip, it displayed the ways that the Icelandic people lived, and they had some of the sod-covered buildings like we had seen before. We did not pay the fee to go in, but their restrooms were nice.
We headed to the other waterfall near here, the Skógafoss. It was much larger, more popular, and more crowded. We could see people climbing up a steep path to the top of the falls while we were at the museum parking lot, and they did not look like they were even moving from afar. There were about five other really nice waterfalls upstream of the largest one at the bottom. We did not have the energy for that type of climb. Some of the pictures and videos we saw on Google about this place were amazing, but we have our limits.
We drove over to the parking lot and got as close as we could to the main falls at the bottom for a couple of quick pictures, then we left. We were amazed at how crowded it was.
We headed to our next spot, and on the way, there was a roadway to a house that we pulled into and got even better pictures of the Skógafoss.
Next on our list was a visit to a parking area known for “The Big Puffin” It was an information area stop and we needed to eat some lunch. There is a large wooden Puffin there for pictures, and we were amazed at how many people stopped there just for that. We were able to watch them as we ate lunch parked right near the puffin. It needed a little paint, but it made a lot of people happy. We even saw someone we passed earlier on the road riding a bicycle full of camping gear stop there for a selfie.
There were three waterfalls nearby, they were accessible from the next parking lot, but we were just too tired to go there. We should have at least driven over to the parking lot because as we passed by out on the road, we could see one of the waterfalls and it was very large. At some point in time, we just have to realize that there is another waterfall over every horizon in Iceland, and we can’t see them all, but it is tempting. Maybe it will be the best one we see…….
There were not any more sites to see before we arrived at our campground for the night, which was about an hour and fifty minutes away. It was too early to stop, so we diverted to a site that was on our list for tomorrow, the Kerid Crater. In pictures on Google, it looked similar to the crater we had visited a few days ago, there is a lake at the bottom and it was blue in color, contrasting with the red colors of the volcanic crater. If we went there today, it would shorten our day tomorrow, and we would avoid some backtracking to see it on tomorrow’s route. If we went today, Google Maps re-routed us and made the drive to see it shorter than it would be if we went there tomorrow.
We arrived at the crater and there was free parking, but a fee to see the crater itself of $1,200 ISK per person. We parked and headed to pay for admission. There was a trail all around the top of the crater, and then some steps down to the lake, with a trail at the bottom of the crater around the lake. The place was packed with people, some on the rim, some on the bottom, and some in between. It was not that spectacular, and with the crowds, it was hard to get a good photo without a lot of people in it, and I probably never did. We only stayed about 15 minutes for a few photos from the top, we were too tired to walk the entire rim, and that really did not serve any purpose other than to say we did it. We definitely were not going down to the lake at the bottom.
We were glad we had gone here today, it would have been disappointing to take that much time tomorrow to backtrack here, we could use that time to see better sites on the Golden Circle, which we will do tomorrow.
We also knew there was a thermal spa near our campground called the Secret Lagoon. We thought it would be nice to go there and bask in the warm water after all of the walking we have done over the past few days. After our experience at last night’s campground, we were a little concerned about space at the campground tonight, so we headed there first to check it out.
There was not going to be a problem with any crowded campsite tonight, there was plenty of space here and there was no one else even there to check in when we arrived. We left and drove the short distance to the Secret Lagoon for a warm soak. It was crowded in the parking lot, but people were leaving as we arrived. We headed inside with our bathing suits and towels, as well as our bath supplies. We were planning to use the showers here and not at the campground since we had to rinse off after our soak here anyway.
This was a lot less expensive spa visit than the other spa we paid for earlier in the trip, but it was not nearly as fancy either. We went into our separate locker rooms and changed. All of these places require you to shower before entering the spa pools, so we did that and met outside. Well, I was out first and after waiting a couple of minutes in the cold, I went into the warm water to wait for Stephanie.
The pool was fairly large, but not to the scale of our other spa experience. The water here was clear, not the milky blue color some are known for. We swam around, searching for some warmer water, there had to be some hot water feeds coming into the pool area, we just had to find them. There was one small stream of hot water trickling down from some of the hot springs around the thermal pool. The springs are too hot for people to go into they are boiling temperature. They were just an attraction to see around the main area, but they did feed hot water into the natural pool area. Unfortunately, we did not take any photos here, it had been too stressful for Stephanie to have her camera at the first Spa we visited, to much worry about dropping it into the water. We stayed for over an hour, and it was relaxing. We did not want to stay too long, it was tiring and we did not want to get too dehydrated.
We went to our separate locker rooms for showers and then to get dressed to leave. The showers were refreshing, but on the men’s side, it was ten shared shower heads in a large area. It gave me flashbacks from my college days at Clemson.
We met in the shoe-changing area and headed to the camper to drive the short distance back to the campground. There were a couple of additional campers parked there when we returned, but this place was huge, there were not going to be any issues finding a spot for the night. Well other than us having trouble picking out a spot, there were too many choices. We first pulled into an area with trees on both sides, just large enough for one camper. Stephanie thought she smelled something sweet, and there were some concrete pieces on the ground, and we were not sure it was really a camping site. We moved to another area and set up and plugged into the electricity. After we were set up and enjoying the view out of our side window, we realized that someone may arrive and park in the space between us and the road and block our view. We moved over about ten feet and eliminated that possibility.
We enjoyed some wine and crackers from inside, it was just too windy to be outside tonight.
We started cooking our dinner shortly thereafter. We were having a carbonara pasta dinner from a package. It was all dried ingredients that we had to put into boiling water. We had trouble with the directions, they were not in English. We realized we needed to cook the pasta mixture in the boiling water for 11 minutes, but it took longer, maybe we had the temperature too low on the gas stove. We also cooked a can of green peas and some bread, toasted in a frying pan. The peas were different, they almost tasted like black-eyed peas more than green peas and had that same texture.
The dinner actually turned out to be pretty good, we were surprised at how much pasta it made from the small envelope of ingredients.
We headed to the shower/bathhouse area to use the dishwashing sinks there. It was a little cool and windy so we washed them quickly and then headed back to the camper for the night. More people were arriving to camp and we now had a neighbor beside us on the side we had moved over from, there was already another camper on that side of us when we initially parked, so when we moved over to protect our view, it left just enough space for someone to pull in on that side of us, so we had been correct to move.
We retired for the night at about 10:30 AM, we wanted to get an early start tomorrow since we are going on the Golden Circle and we anticipate that we will see the most crowds we will have seen on the trip.
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