Day 6:
Today was...nice. It started pretty slowly with a leisurely morning ride to our the hike we had planned. On the way, we ran into the most Icelandic thing I have ever seen -- an adorable little solar powered vending machine stashed in a green closet in the middle of nowhere, papered with international greetings. We walked away with a roll of rollos (which Audrey promptly consumed) and a coke.
The hike was to a place called Stórurð, notorious for it's winding paths through Icelandic mountains, lakes and streams, and it did not disappoint. Despite a blustery outlook, we enjoyed the wild flowers (we even found a few wild blueberries I think, although I was too chicken to try them and find out for sure), streams, and perfect views until having to turn around a little early because of an intimidatingly vast storm bearing down on us at an alarming rate.
Since we finished the hike a little early, we got a jump on some of the next stops on our itinerary: moving into the north towards Lake Myvatn. The drive brought us back out of the storybook forrest areas we'd been driving through and into the moonscape of our lost wanderings a few days ago. It made for less interesting driving so we made good time, even managing to sneak a quick nap in around the halfway point. We also hit hverir because it had been a long drive and we needed to stretch our legs. Hverir is a set of hot bubbling mud pits of orange, white, and occasionally blue. Objectively, it was pretty cool but it (naturally) smelled terrible.
Next up, Dettifoss. Dettifoss is a monster of a waterfall, the most powerful in Europe actually, and is cheekily shy. Despite a haze of mist visible from the parking lot, the waterfall is nestled behind some cliffs and it's a good fifteen minutes of walking and a couple turns around the bend to finally see it. The walk also rewards the tenacious with some stunning views down the canyon, and access to a lesser known neighbor, just a 1.4 km hike past it's grander cousin. Despite being much less powerful, Selfoss was definitely our favorite sprawled along a kilometer or so of cliff edge, it could really be understood as a collective of several smaller falls all jockeying for space to take the dive. It was beautiful and an unexpected but lovely opportunity to hike some more after our earlier excursion was cut a little short.
After the falls, we drove to our next stop (the Asbyrgi cliffs, which we plan to hike tomorrow) and which also hosts a lovely little campground we'll enjoy tonight. The Chicken ramen we had for dinner was the perfect warming capstone to a long and chilly day of wind and rain, and an evening watching Sinbad in the back of the van while I compose this log is a nice relaxed way to end it.
Tomorrow, we watch whales and bathe in another hot spring. Happy birthday to me.
Logging off,
Chelsea and Audrey
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