The 'welcome committee'in Kaldbakur, by Húsavík, awaited us with a barbeque and some cold beer! It was nice to sit down for a proper meal and relax for a bit. The morning after we went up to Þeistareykir to check out the geothermal pool there. Even though the pool turned out to have dried up, and despite bumpy roads, the trip was worth the while. The landscape is breathtakingly beautiful with green grass, wildflowers and the red soil in between.
After our roadtrip to Þeistareykir we went to Ostakarið in Húsavík and had a walk up to Kaldbakslaug, so we got to bathe, and even swim a bit, in two pools that day. Friday night we spent at the local festival and watched the sunrise by the bay. It was a beautiful day in Húsavík.
On Saturday we got a ride up to Aldeyjarfoss in Bárðardalur. There wasn't much traffic going up to Sprengisandur so we ended up spending the night there. As we were taking our tent down in the morning, the first car shows up. It was a lovely couple from Holland, that ended up taking us all the way up to Laugafell, even though that route was out of their way! We had just filmed the pool in Laugafell and had our lunch when we managed to get a ride all the way from Laugafell down to Landmannalaugar. In Landmannalaugar we found the Mountain Mall, where we got to buy more coffee, had a warm and comfy dip in the pool and ended the day by chatting with three other hitchhikers.
On Sunday morning it was pouring rain, but fortunately we managed to get a lift all the way down to Hveragerði. In Hveragerði we got a car for the day. The plan was to go up to Laugavatn, Haukadalur and Flúðir to visit geothermal pools, hoping to be able to pick up some hitchhikers ourselves this time. We got to see Vígðalaug in Laugavatn and Kúalaug and Marteinslaug in Haukadalur, but we couldn't find Hrunalaug by Flúðir! Nor did we find any hitchhikers on the way. But after returning to Hveragerði, we went online and found out that we had been searching a bit too far up road 345 for the pool. It is closer to the junction from road 344 than we thought. For those interrested, here's a map of the location http://www.natturan.is/graenarsidur/inst/2701/.
Seljavallalaug was on the scheduele for Monday. We had organised a ride with two lovely guys through the car pooling site www.samferda.net. On our way to the gas station, where we had decided to meet up with the guys, we had a look at Hveragerði's geothermal area. They've poot up foot bathing area there and a 'mud bath' for the feet as well. It was an interresting sight and nice to see how well they've done it. Next stop was in Seljavallalaug. The surroundings have changed to a quite dramatic atmosphere with ash and sand from the volcanic eruption covering the whole valley. There's also sand and ashes in the pool, but it's still nice and warm and comfortable to bathe in.
We returned to the car and got a nice cup of hot chocolate, along with some sandwiches from the guys, who had been sweet enough to bring enough for all of us! There were two happy girls who arrived in Reykjavík that evening, and got even happier when arriving to the geothermal beach in Nauthólsvík in Reykjavík. We sat down in the sand and contemplated on our beautiful trip whilest gazing at the setting sun. What a perfect end to a perfect trip!
We'd like to give special thanks to all the beautiful people who have assisted us on this project, and particularly to all of you who picked us up along the way!
Helga and Harpa.
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