Iceland Air
Our 8:30 pm Iceland Air flight from Baltimore, Maryland to Keflavik/ Reyjavik, Iceland, was three hours late taking off. The water system on the plane was not working and the mechanics would not venture out in the thunderstorm to repair it. After 2.5 hours of sitting (with stale air) trapped in the plane, the pilot announced that BWI had just closed the airport due to the storm. So we sat another half hour. Not the best start, but at least my claustrophobia did not kick in.
Iceland Air gave us very little information and offered nothing to us the whole time we waited. Free headphones would have been nice. We could have watched an entire movie- with sound. Finally, the plane took off for the five hour, red eye flight, and we arrived in Iceland about 9:00 A.M. Iceland time. We were tired and so ready to get off and stretch our legs.
GoCamper
the flight attendants herded us down 2 sets of stairs, fore and aft, leaving us to trudge across the cold and windy tarmac to the terminal, where we picked up our luggage. It pays to have a jacket with you in your carry on. Our GoogleFi phones had a good signal and we called GoCampers for the 40 minute ride to our rental van. While we waited, Jeff managed to get some cash from a kiosk using his no fee credit card, but it took three tries.
Be sure you get your pin number from your credit company well in advance. You might also want to familiarize yourself with the Icelandic Krona to prevent confusion over the exchange rate. We accidentally got more cash than we wanted. Currently, 1000.00 ISK is about $8.81, but they use decimal points in strange places. We basically found that moving the decimal point left two places gave us a rough (high) estimate of dollars.
The folks at GoCampers were quick to get us set up and we scrounged through the free box for food left by previous campers on the way out the door. I was glad to see that this was like New Zealand, with everyone sharing their leftovers at the end of their journey, since food is very expensive on the island.
The van was a 6 speed stick shift with 10 feet of space behind the drivers seat, similar in size to one I used to drive at work, so it was easy to get used to. I was glad it was not any bigger and that Icelanders drive on the right side of the road. When we saw the meager blankets that came with it, we were really glad we had packed our sleeping bags.
Since the van did not have a toilet, we would need to find a campground each night and partake of any facilities along the way. We discovered fairly quickly that some people think nothing of leaving their toilet paper and waste behind at pull offs, something I cannot understand, and which is causing problems for everyone.
The day was windy and cold (6 C or 42 F)with blasts of sporadic rain so after looking at the weather radar on the phone, we decided to try and get away from the coast and drive the Golden Circle before heading out to the East along the Ring Road. The best part of renting a camper van is the ability to change plans whenever you like. We had no reservations or obligations ahead of us.
Before leaving town, we stopped at the Bonus grocery store and spent 8900 ISK (Kronar) on Skyr (yogurt), bread, lunchmeat, spaghetti sauce, broccoli, eggs, cheese, milk and juice. It all fit in one reusable bag. You will have to pay extra if you use their plastic bags, which they do not encourage. By our loose estimates, our one bag of groceries cost about $89 US dollars, although actually it was closer to $78. I had brought granola, pasta, nuts and some Ramen from home. We did not want to shop too often and were not sure how hard it would be to find a store once we got out of town. The camper van had a cooler size fridge running on 12 volt, so we packed it all in and started our trip.
Thingvellir National Park
Rainbows led us along Route 36 to Gullfoss ( foss at the end of a word means it is a waterfall).
The rain was letting up when we reached Thingvellir, a place where the North American and European Plates meet, forming a natural amphitheater.
This place had been an annual meeting place for the Vikings for over a thousand years and the rocks, waterfalls and vistas were gorgeous. So was the sun. It was fun to try and imagine molten rock forming the radiating rings and drip castle forms all around us. Throw visions of Norsemen at a huge market place and political tribunal in and current life ebbs away.
The temperature here was about 45 F degrees (7C) and windy, but the sun kept trying to warm things up. Good rain gear and easily added layers makes for comfort in Iceland. Be sure to pay for parking at this park as they have a camera recording your plate as you leave and your rental company will charge you extra for the hassle of them getting your bill. Your plate number and a credit card will be needed for the kiosk, so carry it with you.
Driving out Rt 37 and Rt 35, our next stop was Geysir, a hot bed of volcanic steam vents and, of course, a geyser that forms a huge bubble and then shoots up about 30 feet into the air, every 8 minutes. Click the link for a video.
We continued to drive around the golden circle, stopping at anything cool and finally setting up camp for the night at Skjol. There is a pub attached to the bathroom block if you need someone to fix you dinner and a brew. We had to ford a huge puddle to get out to the camping field but they were obviously in the process of fixing the drainage problem. Iceland has had an unusually wet and cool summer, just like we have had at home in West Virginia. There were maybe ten other campers, so no wait for the restroom. We were tired from all the traveling, so we cooked a quick dinner of egg drop ramen with broccoli, and dropped off to sleep in our camper van just after dark, about 9pm.
Day 2
There is a lot to see on the famous golden circle drive and today we backtracked a little bit. We headed out Rt 30 and stopped at a reconstruction of an old Viking sod house, which unfortunately had closed September 1, yesterday. We got out and walked around and tried not to be disappointed that the doors were closed. The sod built structures blended into the landscape with grass growing all over them and there was a nice waterfall close by.
Along the way we came across a Skafholtsrettir, or sheep fold. This is a round pen made of sod and stone walls, divided like a pie into sections with a circle in the middle. They have been used to sort all the sheep brought down from the highlands each fall for hundreds of years. This one was renovated in 1954 but then an earthquake destroyed it on June 17, 2000. The sod and stone walls were beautifully rebuilt in 2001 and the annual rettir will be starting this month, so maybe we will see it in action.
Waterfalls are one of our passions, so the next stop was Urrigafoss, Seligenansfoss and Gijufurafoss. Foss means waterfall.
Seljalandsfoss is quite famous and there were a lot of people there, but not so many that it bothered me. September is a good time for smaller crowds. The next waterfall, Gljufrafoss, is a short walk away, where some folks enjoyed squeezing into the crevice to get wet. There are signs with stories about each place.
Down the road a little way is Uriddafoss on the Pjorsa River, where salmon and trout spawn and seals come up to feast on them. The Landsvirkjum power company is planning to dam the river just above the falls and divert much of the water. Iceland is powered by water and geothermal steam and still, like everywhere, there are issues of conservation.
We continued on, stopping at the Volcano Center, where we learned about the numerous volcanic eruptions, hotspots, earthquakes, glaciers and floods that occur all over Iceland. The entire island is actively changing all the time. It is a little scary.
Our finals top for day 2 was at Skogafoss, a beautiful place where we camped out to the sound of the waterfall all night. There were sheep across the creek way up on the hill, and a hike up many steps to the top of the falls. A photographer was taking pictures of a bride in her long white, strapless, wedding gown, who kept putting her puffy parka on between shots to warm up.
We splurged and ate dinner at the restaurant with some really tasty, local Artic Char, sweet potatoes and a Lava Stout. I would not be drinking much beer on this trip at these prices, $11-$18 a glass.
The mountain behind the falls had a glacier sitting on it that we could not see from up close. The sky cleared and the temperature dropped as the sun went down and we glimpsed our first sight of a wispy Aurora Borealis, just a fleeting glance of a greenish glow over the mountain that quickly dissappeared. I was left wondering if I had even seen it. This gave us hope for other chances to see the northern lights on our trip to the north.
Stay tuned for the next leg of our 16 day Iceland trip.
-Wendy lee, originally writing from my homesteading site at Edgewisewoods, Gardens and Critters and then moving all my travel and hiking writings to my new site EdgewiseTravels .com
It was quiet up there with just the sighing of the wind through the trees. Jeff thought we might turn around at this point but I voted him down. It was not even worth the drive to do a hike that short. You couldn’t even call it a hike really, even if it had been uphill most of the way so far.
