Photo Friday: Icelandic Campervan Tour, Post #1

If you enjoyed my hike through Iceland's Highlands on the Laugavegur trail (here, here, and here), wait till you see all the places I took my rental campervan!

Day One: Gullfoss, Geysir, Brúarfoss 

I started my day early (painfully so, after my late dinner and evening out with the hikers the night before), catching the bus back to the airport for pickup by the campervan people. Of course, I had visions of picking it up and being on my way by mid-morning. In fact, it was nearly 1:00 before I had the van, had bought groceries, and was on my way.

Since I liked my van and thought I got good service and a decent price from Happy Campers, they can have this bit of advertising :)  It was a Nissan NV200 or something of that sort, for those who know such things. I got the "EX" package which is an older van (2017-19) and manual transmission, which saved me about $20/day. Sometimes being old isn't all bad--I learned to drive on a stick shift, so this was no problem for me.

 

A couple of interior shots will give the general idea.

Daytime mode, with the bed made up into a bench and towels drying all over the counter! Petey Possum approves of the van over the backpack.

Night mode. The bed fills all the empty space. You can see the fridge back right (electric--nice not to have to deal with ice!) and the sink next to it (with a hand pump; the newer vans have electric water pumps). There was a heater, too, which could warm the space in a hurry.

Happy Campers has a great "share zone" at their office where people can leave their extra supplies and you can pick up whatever you want from it. I got a lot of stuff there, and from a couple who were emptying their van right next to where I was filling mine, but still had to do some grocery shopping (I tried really hard to get exactly what I'd need, but still had a fair amount of stuff to turn in when I was done. 

Once on the road, a couple of hours' driving took me to my first stop. In retrospect, I could have done this differently, but I wanted to hit some of the big-name spots in the southwest right off the bat.

Gullfoss. 
Gullfoss ("golden waterfall") is a 2-step waterfall that ultimately plunges into a deep, almost cross-wise slash in the plateau before flowing off at nearly a right angle to the upstream flow.

Falls overview.

Over the second step and down the canyon.

The first step is more of a cascade.

 

As you can see in the photos, my Icelandic fall weather was continuing, and I had rain showers off and on both on my drive and while viewing the falls. As the afternoon ran down, however, the rain stopped, and I enjoyed better weather at my next stops.

Gesyir.
This geyser basin isn't up to Yellowstone standards, but the Stukkur geyser is a reliable spouter, erupting every 10 minutes or so.   
 

Stokkur at rest--as restful as it gets. Note the ring in the middle, where the water is bubbling and preparing for the next eruption.

Great excitement as the eruption begins.

  

Full eruption.

After a half hour or so at Geysir, I raced off for one more stop before camp. Though it was getting late, I stuck with my plan to hike up to the Brúarfoss from the main road, rather than driving to the parking. This was partly motivated by a desire not to pay for more parking, partly by a need for a good walk, and partly because it sounded like the river and some smaller falls on the way up were worth the visit. They were.

I had to hike fast and shoot fast, because it was a 4-mile round trip, and I didn't start until nearly 6, with sunset at 7:45. Ideally, the sun would have come from under the clouds and given me great light on the river. I wasn't that lucky.

Hlaurutungufoss--the first fall. The river is noted for the blue water, unusual in a land where the rivers are largely chocked with glacial silt.

Mithfoss* (middle falls).

Brúarfoss.

 

Finishing up at 7:05 p.m.

From this stop, I just wanted to get to Thingvellir National Park and my intended campsite for the night. 

A note on camping in Iceland: dispersed camping ("freedom camping", i.e., camping without a campground) is prohibited. You must camp in an official campground, of which there are plenty. Since they come with toilets, running water, and usually showers, it's not a hardship for the most part! (I admit to liking dispersed camping, but understand the need to prevent ecological degradation from people who haven't the manners of a cat).

In a hurry or not, I had to stop and capture the sun setting over Thingvallavatn--Thingvellir Lake.

 
In camp at last, I finally got my dinner about 8 p.m.--about midnight by my standards, but earlier than the previous night, and I wouldn't have skipped any of my stops!

 
Day 2: Thingvellir National Park, Glymurfoss, Snaefellsness Peninsula

Map of Thingvallavatn and the park--note the orange pin marking my location, at the heart of the historical stuff.

Thingvellir National Park is both a pretty amazing bit of geography and landscape--it's a rift valley at the heart of the spreading zone between North America and Europe--and the heart of Icelandic history. Thingvellir was the site of the first permanent settlement in Iceland, and is also the place where the Logretta (Law Council) met from the year 930 until union with Norway in 1262. The Althing (parliament) continued to meet there until 1800, though the final say in everything lay with the Norwegian (later Danish) king.

The Logberg, the Law Rock, where the Lawspeaker recited each year the laws of the land.

 

 
Though there were men of greater and lesser power, for 330** years all free men (I'm not sure what portion of the people this was, but a lot) could and often did attend the annual Thing (assembly), which sounds like it was a pretty good party scene as well as the time of the dispensing of often brutal judicial decisions.

Thingvellir remained an important location to Icelanders and Icelandic government, even after the government moved to Reykjavik. A church has stood on this site since shortly after Christianity was adopted as the official religion (with the usual obligatory conversion and dire penalties for failure to comply) in 1000AD. The current version has stood since 1859. The president's summer home in its current form was built in 1930.

Church and residence seen from the Law Rock.

In addition to checking out the history, I enjoyed the scenic hike through the rift zone. 

Oxarafoss, where the Oxara river falls into the rift.

 Glymurfoss

Back on the road after my morning on the trail, and off to Glymurfoss, listed on the sign at the trailhead as the highest in Iceland, but probably only in the top 5.

The first mile of trail is easy, but doesn't bring you to any view of the falls. I'll have to cross that river and climb the hillside to see what I came for.

Thanks to the random fellow hiker who filmed and photographed me crossing the river. Half on the log, then under the wire on the rocks and rock-hop the rest of the way!

After crossing, the trail gets serious about climbing.

This was also about where I realized that I was seeing fall colors!

As much of the waterfall as I could see!

Between limited time and the steepness of the trail, which seemed likely to destroy knees, I didn't climb to the top of the falls. I think I got the idea!

The rest of the afternoon was spent driving to and out the Snaefellsness Peninsula.   

Stops along the way were mostly quick photo stops, as I got very excited over the low light and the Icelandic landscapes. 

Coastal plains and Snaefellsjokull.

This was not just the best, but really the only, view I got of Snaefellsjokull, as the weather began to close in on me again.

Coastal view from Rauthfeldsgja, a narrow slit in the mountain wall through which a stream rushes. I couldn't get any satisfactory photos inside, and didn't go very far in as the climb got both a little hairy and almost certainly wet.

Winds were howling along this coast, a condition that pretty much stuck with me any time I was near the coast. I settled into camp at Arnarstapi early enough to make dinner at a normal time for once, and enjoyed the evening light as the wind shook my camper.

Whew! My apologies for such a long post. 

I want to comment here that I hurried too much in these early days with the van, afraid that I wouldn't have time for some of the big sights near the end of my drive. As it turned out, that might not have been all bad--I did have extra time, but my last 2 days in Iceland were very wet, windy, and not at all good for hiking. Still, I regret not spending a little more time in these areas shown in today's post. Guess I'll have to go back :)

  ~~~

*A note on orthography: when I type a Th, that is a stand-in for the Icelandic letters thorn or eth, which Blogger won't even let me copy in.  Here's a screenshot of a quick sample; unfortunately our English letters won't distinguish between the two types of th sound.

I'm trying to use the diacritical marks on the vowels, but I seem only to be able to produce accents, so the umlauts on some vowels are being ignored. I can't pronounce them, either, so I guess it's fair!

** That is about 136 years longer than the US Congress has been meeting. 
  

 ©Rebecca M. Douglass, 2025   
As always, please ask permission to use any photos or text. Link-backs appreciated.


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