Iceland Day 12-14
Sorry for the delay in posts and finishing the trip. But let’s be honest, probably just writing this as a journal for myself in the future when I’m old and have Alzheimer's. I write when I can and do this for fun, so I write when I write.
Well the day has come where Dana had to go home and get back to reality. It was a bittersweet moment but it’s tough to get even 3 weeks off so I’m glad we got to spend that much time over here in Europe together. After saying goodbye at the airport, I went back to the hotel to just relax until it was time to checkout.
Once I left the hotel, I met up with Jokull and had a quick breakfast. Once we finished, he toiled me to take a tour of his Search and Rescue Team’s facility. Jokull volunteers for one of the bigger teams in Iceland. He is actually one of their boat captains for their water team. Unlike the US, the SAR team is the main water rescue unit in Iceland. It’s quite amazing considering it’s an all volunteer team that relies on firework sales and some government money. After checking out the building and awesome superjeeps, Jokull took me out on their SAR boat to get a unique look at Reykjavík as well as show off the capabilities of the boat. It was an awesome experience.
Once we were done and I got back to my truck, I said my goodbye and began to run errands. First thing first was go to the bigger Hand-knitting store and get Dana’s lopapeysa. She wanted a certain style and the other store didn’t have her size. After that, I did some quick grocery shopping, had lunch, and took off to camp. I was camping near Goðafoss since I was meeting up with Florian, a German I met on Facebook who now lives in Iceland.
In the middle of the night, I had to wake up to use the restroom around 1am. While walking to it, I looked up and noticed a green tint to the sky. To me, it looked like the Northern lights and when I used my camera to check, I confirmed it was! It was a pleasant surprise since it was still early in the season and it was a weak solar storm. I spent another good half hour to hour just taking pictures.
The next morning, I packed up and headed to the meeting point with Florian. He has a nice blue Jeep 4XE on 40” tires with the auto-inflate/deflate system. I think that’s the coolest thing about the off-road trucks in Iceland is the ability to change tire pressure on the fly. It makes sense when you think about how cold it is during the winter. Who would want to get out of their rig? Not only that but the huge tires and fender flares just adds a nice touch to these giant rigs.
Once we made our introductions, we headed to F349. The first stop on the road was actually a hike to a Goðafoss viewpoint. This view was from the opposite of the waterfall and was amazing for one big reason: no one is there. You can see all the tourists in the other side but you have this spot pretty much to yourself. It was pretty cool to see a different view of the waterfall. This part of F349 is actually pretty easy to get to, but after that I would advise against any rentals due to the remoteness.
F349 used to be the main way to get to Kerlingarfjöll, but then 35 took its place. The landscape is pretty, but not like the rest of the F roads on Iceland. It is extremely remote and there are quite a few rock gardens, which is why I say if you have a rental with stock tires I wouldn’t recommend. Not only that but there are some decent size river crossing as well as some areas of articulation/off-camber. If something happens while you are on this road, the chance of someone passing by is extremely small as well. I think once we passed the easy portion, I saw 1 other vehicle the entire time. In my opinion, F349 was actually one of my favorite roads to drive just because it had some technical aspects and a little of everything. Some high speed driving, river crossings, sand, rock gardens, mountains, and little technical stuff. It was a great drive.
When we finally climbed out of the Froad, we went to the thermal springs since Florian has never seen them. It was packed compared to when Dana and I did it, but we still found a spot and checked it out real quick. After that, Florian took me to a route down 35 where we could drive on the glacier!
It was quite a long drive to the glacier, but once there it was pretty cool experience. Unfortunately, it was cut a bit short when we got to a point where there were some workers from the snowmobile company. They made us turn around, but talking to Florian he didn’t think they had the right to since it was public and open during the winter, but didn’t want to waste the time arguing. Once we turned around, we made our way back to Kerlingarfjöll to camp for the night. We settled in to our spots and after dinner, we went up to the hotel’s hot springs. It was a nice hot spring with a beautiful view of the area. It wasn’t too crowded and was a nice relaxing way to end a long day of driving. After a couple of hours, we called it a night.
The next morning, we took our time getting ready and eventually headed back down F349. From there we took one of the mountain tracks, which are not F roads but are still allowed to drive. However, they are less maintained than a F road and some are definitely more technical. The nice thing about these tracks are that they are still very clearly marked so you do not go off the path. This track was definitely more bumpy as it had lots of rock gardens that we had to drive slow through. There was also a large river crossing, but it was clearly marked with poles and wasn’t too deep so it was easy.
The road eventually led to 206, where we got some much needed gas. By this time, the wind had picked up dramatically. This was one of the first times where I had to really watch out for when my door opened. Once gassed up, we headed to F225 and eventually a mountain track headed to Hekla. Hekla is an active volcano that is actually one of Iceland’s most active. On the way to Helkla, we passed by Apple Crater, which was nice to see but I think a drone view is where you would truly appreciate it.
The dirt track to Hekla at one point got pretty steep going up. Nothing too crazy for someone who off roads, but if you never been off roading in the mountains it could be a bit intimidating. As we got closer to the top, it actually started to snow! When we reached the end, we took our time just enjoying the snow and surprisingly it was not as windy in this area. Eventually, it was time to head back down. It was interesting to see how quick the altitude change affected the weather, because once we hit a certain point the snow turned to rain again.
When we hit F210, this was when we parted ways. Florian had to make it back to work the next day, so he headed back to Reykjavík while I continued on F210. The drive was a typical pretty Icelandic landscape and was easy going until I got to the first river crossing that made me pause. It was the fastest moving crossing I had come across so far, and I decided to play it safe and walk it since I couldn’t tell how deep. I could still walk through the river, which was a positive, and the water was just last my knee. Once I found the right line, I got back into the truck, set it to 4L and went through it. The truck handled it no problem, though I went a little faster than I should have.
After that crossing, the trail winded through some more beautiful terrain and eventually I got to Álftavatn where I camped for the night. It is next to a beautiful lake, but it was so windy I just stayed in the camper. There was a nice Landcruiser RV and also a group of kids on a camping trip. It was pretty peaceful other than the insane winds blasting all night. The flagpole was making so much noise that I had to put in headphones to sleep.
