Louis' Travels

This day was another hiking day instead of a driving one. Looking at the map apps on the phone, I noticed there’s a glacier nearby, the Fláajökull Glacier and I hoped I could touch yet another glacier. The hike was nice and easy at the beginning, through very green areas, but as I got closer to the glacier, it got rockier, and colder (which was not surprising because I was approaching a block of ice visible from space). I only saw 8 other people on this hike; there was an older German couple who were also camping at my campsite, and I met a Spanish couple by the glacier.

I managed to get real close to the glacier, and took some pictures. There was a crevasse that I could see the side of, and I asked a fellow hiker to take a picture of me very close to it. During the glacier lake tour the day before, the tour guide explained to everyone how glaciers are unstable and parts can break any time. So I was approaching the giant hanging piece of ice with caution, but I hoped it would stay there long enough for me to take a picture, and it did…

I walked back to the campsite, had a nap in the car, drove to Höfn to get groceries, and drove to the next guesthouse because I needed another good night’s sleep. The guesthouse, Hólmur, was actually just “around the corner”, and the glacier I visited earlier that day is located on land owned by the owners of this guesthouse. The area around Höfn also looks interesting, but I didn’t explore it, I guess I was really tired that day.

The next day, I woke up and met the other guests of the little guest house. There was a German couple who didn’t seem to want to interact, but another guest was friendlier. Jakob was visiting from Czech Republic, and he was also doing the ring, but by bus. We were going the same direction that morning, so I offered him a ride.

I booked a boat tour of the glacier lake Jökulsárlón in the afternoon. It was around 3 hours’ drive away, so there was time to see other things before the tour started. Jökulsárlón is the largest glacial lake in Iceland, the glacier (Vatnajökull, the biggest in Iceland) melts into the lake, and icebergs also break off and float on the lake. The boat tour doesn’t get to touching distance of the glacier, so I wanted to go somewhere where I can do that (touch a glacier). Close to the guest house there’s Solheimajokull, so we drove there as the first stop. We walked a little from the parking place, and saw groups who were doing glacier walks. I’ve seen the brochures for this activity, but to me this is a too cold (as well as too pricy) activity. We walked past the signs that said “Do not pass here without expert guide” and managed to touch some ice. Hooray, goal accomplished!

Jakob wanted to visit Dyrhólaey that day, which is a cliff which has views of Reynisfjara, and also has puffins. On the way there, another popular tourist attraction is the crashed remains of a DC-3 plane (well, technically a C-117D). I was not sure if this sight was worth a visit or not, and Jakob also thought the same, but in the end we thought, why not have a look. There’s a bus that goes from the carpark to the location of the wreck, but a one-way ticket cost 20 Euro, so we decided to walk the 3.5km from the car park to the plane. It’s not a hard walk, but it was over rocks, so it wasn’t as comfortable as a walk in some city, nor could we go fast. It was an interesting walk, though, through fog and a landscape that could be the moon.

The plane wreck itself was, as expected, a wrecked plane. There were a lot of tourists around, even people climbing it. I wondered if it should be respected for future tourists, but it wasn’t really any significant monument. We saw the bus going back to the carpark and decided the bus was worth it compared to the walk, so we took it, and continued our drive to Dyrhólaey.

Dyrhólaey is a peninsula from which you can see the Reynisfjara. It also has other interesting features like a big natural arch, a lighthouse, and some puffins. Sadly I still had to drive quite a distance to Jökulsárlón, so I didn’t stay here long. Jakob and I said our good-byes and safe travels, and I continued my drive. On the way I stopped at the Icewear outlet store to get the winter jacket I saw the day before, and then I drove past a lot of beautiful landscape (mostly too fast) trying to make it before the check-in time of the tour at 4:30 PM. The first part of the drive was wet and foggy, but to my left I could see glimpses of glacier in the distance (all part of the giant glacier Vatnajökull). Rounding the corner past the city of Hof, the weather improved and there were blue skies. There were also fascinating volcanic rock formations, but sadly I had no time to stop and take pictures of these.

I made it to Jökulsárlón with a few minutes to spare, it turns out the tour company was pretty relaxed, and the rush was not really super necessary. Jökulsárlón is the largest glacier lake, and there were a few tour companies, and a lot of tourists.

I was doing a rubber boat (“zodiac boat”) tour with around 10 or so other people. After suiting up in gear that would let us survive the cold water if we fell in, we walked to the water and did the tour. Luckily the weather was good at this point, not foggy like where I was in the morning. It was a fascinating tour looking at icebergs at a somewhat close distance (but not too close, because they can flip any time). We also moved as close as we could to the edge of the glacier, hoping to catch glimpse of ice falling off it, sadly we didn’t see any.

After the boat tour, I stayed at the coast of the lake to further enjoy the sight of the icebergs floating on the lake. After breaking off from the glacier, the icebergs flow slowly into the ocean, and sometimes the ice ends up back on the beach, giving the beach the name “Diamond Beach”. The winter jacket I bought earlier proved to be a wise choice, since it was really cold standing next to all the ice, obviously.

I left the area quite late, around 9:30 PM. My plan was to drive further east and find a guesthouse to sleep (for a discount). This night, it was a bit harder, because according to booking.com most of the guesthouses were fully booked. As I left Jökulsárlón, I saw a man standing at the side of the road with his thumb out, a hitchhiker. Since I was a hitchhiker myself once, I stopped the car and let him in. Harry was travelling from Australia, doing the ring but travelling using his thumb.

We rode together for half an hour, and I let him off as I turned off from the road to try a guesthouse. I couldn’t persuade the owner to give me the price I wanted, so I decided to go to 1 campground which is not so obvious on the map. I got back on the road, and found Harry standing next to the road a bit further down. By this point it was getting dark. He wanted to go to Höfn, which is beyond where I was going.

After a 40-minute drive, I was again turning off the main road. I said bye again to Harry, and drove some 6 km away from the main road towards the glacier. The camp site was really secluded. There were 3-4 other cars there, it was nice and quiet. By this time it was 11PM and I was quite tired. I decided the next day I would not be driving all over the place, and just hike to another glacier. I had dinner in the car, brushed my teeth in the outdoor sink in the cold night, and tried to sleep in the car. I was worried for Harry, waiting for a ride in the middle of the night, I wondered if I should pick him up and we could somehow share the space in the car, but at 2 AM he wrote that an Icelandic lady picked him up and gave him a ride to the hostel he wanted to go to, lucky for him.

After my 14 km hike, I found a guesthouse in the village Skógar and got a room from the couple running it. I asked them where I could get groceries, and they said the closest place is Vík í Mýrdal (or Vik for short), 30 minutes away. Oh well, it never gets dark during these times, the only limit was the shops closing at 8:30 PM. I drove there, got some groceries (while dodging tourists), and then spent a lot of time browsing the Icewear outlet store.

I wasn’t expecting Iceland to be as cold as it was, so I was interested in the discounted winter jackets (yes, winter jackets for July!). I ended up delaying the decision until later (I was going to drive past the store again the next day anyway). Otherwise, the store has a lot of nice and warm clothes, but outside of a price range of someone who was going to still be unemployed for the next five and a half months.

Between Vik and Skógar there’s a small detour to Reynisfjara, a black beach, which was also a filming location for Game of Thrones. I actually thought it was the shooting location for the beach scenes of Dragonstone and for the Dragonglass cave, but those scenes were filmed elsewhere. Still, it was a cool location, with interesting basalt formations. But too many tourists. I was tired from walking all day, and it was cold, so I didn’t stay that long.

On the way back I passed a tiny little church. There was a husband and wife on the grounds, I talked to them and they were visiting from another corner of Iceland. The wife is originally from this area, and her parents are buried on the church grounds. They were going to take care of the church yard. I asked if the church was open, and the husband said “Let’s see”, and casually just removed the bar blocking the doors and invited me to look inside. It’s a simple small church.

I drove back to Skógar, which took forever because I stopped a lot to take pictures. The guesthouse had several rooms, and 2 other rooms were occupied, but I didn’t meet their occupants. An advantage was the kitchen, where I made myself something warm for dinner. I tried to plan the next days in Iceland, but it had been a tiring day and soon I was asleep.

After a good sleep and breakfast, I walked to the Skógafoss waterfall and prepared for my hike. At the bottom of the waterfall there’s a huge carpark and a lot of tourists. I actually didn’t get too close to the waterfall, because the spray was freaking cold!

The start of the hike was a 60+ meter climb up some stairs. This takes people to the top of the waterfall. Walking a few hundred meters upstream, there was already fewer tourists. I continued walking next to the gorge and taking a lot of pictures, and encountering spectacular waterfalls.

Here is a map of my route (or an OSM version) for this day. I walked only around 14km (7km upstream, and 7km back). And you can see where this area is (the red rectangle) compared to the whole island!

After a while I met a man also hiking in my direction, Bor from Slovenia. Hiking alone is never recommended, so we decided to join up and hike together. He was going further though, this hiking route goes to Thórsmörk, and a motivated hiker can even connect to the 55km Laugavegur trekking route. Since I had my car parked back near Skógafoss, and no camping equipment, I was just going to hike until I reach the time to go home, and turn back.

The weather was partly cloudy, partly sunny this day. Fog would come and go. Which was okay for me, permanent sun would be too much. I wanted to get close to the Eyjafjallajökull glacier and volcano, but the fog sadly covered it.

We walked until around 3 PM and stopped for lunch. As we were eating, the fog came down thick. Bor was walking further, and I decided to walk back down. Walking in the thick fog was quite interesting. At 6:30 PM I was back at the village Skógar, feeling satisfied.

In the afternoon, I wandered around the area some more with the car. Since it was sort of nearby, I visited the Knarraros Lighthouse. The lighthouse itself was nothing exciting, but the surroundings were great: it was close to the sea and like a lot of Iceland, there was no one else for kilometers.

After this I headed towards Seljalandsfoss, another famous waterfall. On the way there, there was another waterfall mentioned by Google Maps, Ægissíðufoss (yeah don’t ask me how to pronounce that). I stayed a few minutes and took a few pictures, but it was cloudy and cold so I didn’t stay long.

I drove a bit more and got to Seljalandsfoss. It was great, there’s a cave you can walk into so you’re behind the waterfall. Another cool sight, but very cold because of the water spraying everywhere (and my jacket was not warm enough).

I continued driving on the Ring Road and ended the day at Skógafoss, so that was the 4th waterfall I saw on this day. I decided to stay near there for the evening, and since it was cold, I thought I’d sleep in a hotel again. I tried to get a good price for the hotel room, and I managed to get a good discount yet again. After checking in, I walked to the waterfall to take a few pictures. By this time it was after 10 at night, but there was still daylight and tourists walking around.

I decided the next day I wouldn’t be driving, but going for a hike behind Skógafoss. It’s a famous hiking path that goes quite deep into the island, but my plan was to hike until I feel like I need to turn back.

The sleep in the hotel room was a lot better than in the car. On this third day in Iceland, I still didn’t have any concrete plans. I continued on the Golden Circle and went to Gullfoss, a big big waterfall. This site, being on the Golden Circle, which is a popular route of three famous tourist spots, was full of tourists being delivered by the busload.

Seeing all the photo-taking, I wondered, “Are we experiencing, or busy Instagramming?”. It seems the first reaction of seeing something incredible was “I have to take a picture of this!”, and it wasn’t much different with me. It’s a weird human instinct of trying to store things on the camera/phone memory, for future reference, instead of using our eyes and other senses to record the sensation.

After Gullfoss, the Golden Circle route goes south, so you turn left after leaving the car park. Here I thought, “I wonder what’s down the road to the right?”, so I turned right, and followed the road into the interior of the island. At that point I felt I was on an adventure; rather than knowing where I was going, I didn’t. The road streched across the vast empty landscape in front of me. After a while, even the paved road ended, and I was driving on gravel. I noticed that I would pass a huge glacier - Langjökull, the second largest in Iceland - on my left. When I saw a left turn, I decided to take it and see how close I can get to it. After a while I caught up to a small Kia hatchback. I was driving a 4 wheel drive on a very rough gravel road; I wondered if this car would make it on this road.

At the end of this road, there was a cabin which was a base for a glacier expedition, with some trucks and minibuses with giant tyres parked outside. The Kia parked near me, and a man with hiking gear came out of it. He was going to do a 2-3 day expedition up the mountain in front of us.

There was a minibus with giant tyres taking tourists onto the glacier, but this kind of adventure didn’t really interest me. After a while I drove back to the main road and back down south, taking a lot more pictures of the desolate scenery along the way.

I found a gas station with a store and had some lunch. After all the driving I was tired yet again, so I took a nap in the car.

I’ve been experimenting with 3D pictures for a while now. The idea is, the left eye and the right eye see a scenery from 2 different angles, so if you take a photo, move the camera several cm to one side, and take another photo, you can combine them to have a 3D picture. One way to view such a picture is to have the image for the right eye on the left side, the image for the left eye on the right side, and to get the 3 dimensional effect, you have to cross your eyes. Here is an explanation with pictures, and a video tutorial on YouTube.

Once you can get it, enjoy some 3D!

The next day, I woke up feeling pretty rough. Sleeping in the car was not comfortable for my back, and it was too cold throughout the night. I had breakfast in the car, eating food I bought in a small grocery store the day before.

After breakfast, I set out with the car, after 2 minutes of driving I found a supermarket, and stopped there to get food. Seeing the prices of the country, I had decided it was going to be a self-catering holiday, so I got some bread, some salami, and some condiments in a bottle. This combination was going to be lunch and dinner until I get bored. And some Kleinur for breakfast/snacking.

I really hadn’t made any itenerary for Iceland, so I decided for that day to first visit Thingvellir National Park (or Þingvellir in Icelandic). Thingvellir is a national park that was also the site of Iceland’s parliament. It’s a huge valley that sits between the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates; these plates are drifting apart, and more earth is coming from below to fill the gap. This I learned from a walking tour I joined, you can read its Wikipedia article for more details.

The walking tour was great, there were only 2 other people, plus the guide, so it was small and like being with friends on a walk… in the park. We learned why they had the national parliament (Althing) there beginning in the year of 930 AD: the parliament was a gathering of leaders from all over the island; so they had to find a place where there was enough food (fish, or I guess grass for sheep) and wood to stay warm, for the hundreds of people. It also became a summer festival of sorts, with almost everyone from the country gathering to have fun and do business.

Our guide Sheila also pointed out the Icelandic Prime Minister’s summer house. She said the PM would just drive up there in her car, and she found it nice that in Iceland, she could just knock on the PM’s door and have a chat over coffee. After the hour-long tour, I walked around the park some more, taking pictures. I ran into Sheila again, picking up trash that people carelessly drop in the park; it’s supposed to be a national park, things like tissues and candy wrappers would of course ruin the environment. She said being a guide was fun, but this was the less glamorous part of being a ranger. But at least she got to be outside, the worse job is sitting the whole day at the information desk and answering tourists’ dumb questions, like “What is here?”.

After Thingvellir, I drove to Geysir, a hot spring area, and the origins of the English word “geyser”. The geyser named Geysir itself has stopped erupting, but another one in the area, Strokkur, explodes every few minutes. The area here is nice and warm, especially closer to the ground/water.

After a few hours here, it was around 9:30 in the evening. I was not looking forward to another cold night in the car. I got the idea of walking into a hotel next to the hot spring and asking if they have a room and they’d be willing to have it occupied for the night, for a discount. And this worked! It was still a lot of money, but it was 50% cheaper, and the room was nice and warm. If I remember right, they even gave me breakfast.

My plan for Iceland was to find a camping ground each night and sleep in the car, so before arriving I had only booked hotels for the last 2 nights in the country. I picked up rental car near the airport, and wondered where to go next. I decided to drive to Reykjavík, which was about an hour away. While driving, I had a moment where I thought, “Damn, I’m in Iceland!”. I felt the landscape looked alien: the ground next to the highway was volcanic rock, there were no big trees, and in the horizon there were huge rocky mountains. Even the air seemed different, maybe it was just the colour because of the partly cloudy, partly sunny day.

I made to it Reykjavík and Hallgrímskirkja the famous church, had lunch (it was actually 6:30 in the afternoon by this point), and walked around Reykjavík’s centre afterwards. It was an interesting city (if we can call it that): it was pretty empty and quiet, and there were many souvenir and winter clothing stores (which I found out was actually necessary, even in July!).

After that, I drove to a campsite in the suburbs, getting there around 9:30 in the evening (The amount of daylight at night was confusing me. At one point it was 23:30, and the sun came out of the clouds and shone brightly for sunset. It never got dark in July, I could’ve gone outside at 1 at night and read a book without using any lights). I parked my car on the grounds and prepared to sleep in it. At this point I realised, it’s not going to be comfortable in it. I put the rear seat down, and there were metal parts pushing against the back of the seat, through my sleeping back, against my lower back…

To summarise my Ireland trip, I realised I had planned too much in not enough days. My itinerary around the island and seeing the things I wanted to see should’ve probably been done in 2 or 3 weeks, instead of 8 days with 2 of them spent in Dublin.

I missed many things, but now I know Ireland is a destination I can visit again for a future holiday or more. The people I met were great and easy-going (and they speak English!), the countryside is very very pretty.

But my last night in Ireland was terrible: the road outside the hostel was being repaired, and the repairs went on the whole night long. I was actually still having problems with my ear, so I was desperate for a good sleep.

The hostel is actually student dormitories, which are apparently empty during vacation time so the rooms get rented out to tourists. Across my room was a big kitchen, which was quieter because the window wasn’t facing the street which was being demolished and rebuilt that night. I made the decision to take a pillow and my sleeping bag and sleep on a sofa in that kitchen.

This became an exercise in lying really still, because any big movement would trigger the automatic light sensor and ruin my attempts to sleep for many minutes (I should’ve put on my sleeping mask). Also, anyone could’ve walked in, and I don’t like sleeping “in public”. Needless to say, I didn’t get a good rest.

I zombied my way through the morning, walking to the car rental place to handover the car, taking the bus to the airport, and getting the plane to Iceland…