Iceland - Day 3

Monday June 12, 2017

We got an earlier start this morning and I'm glad for it. Our first stop was Fjadrargljufur, the hidden canyon, and we were only the second ones to arrive. We were the first people to climb to the top though, and basically had the whole place to ourselves.

The canyon was UNREAL. I felt like we were on the set of a movie. So picturesque is seemed like it couldn't be natural.

There were lots of little spurs jutting out over the river below and near the bottom you could access the paths that led to them. Farther up they had (smartly) gated off the more precarious spurs though.

Hard to see the depth in this picture, but it was pretty sheer on either side of the spurs jutting into the canyon. I got scared.

The official path overlooks did a good job of giving us good views though, not to mention kept us safe haha.

Can you see our shadows?

Something out of a movie right??

If you look closely you can see our shadows in this one as well.

*Trying to get a good angle of the canyon* 

"Yes. This is the one."

The view of the valley at the top

We spent a while in this little canyon; hiking up past where the pathway ended and into the valley beyond. It was pretty spectacular and perfect weather too.

Saw this gem as we pulled over to check on the highland roads. I just couldn't resist.

After getting to the bottom and driving out to the main road where we had service we called the 1777 number to check Iceland's highland road conditions and found that the road we had hoped we'd be able to take (F208) was closed from the south and we'd only be able to hit up the day's itinerary by going the long way around and cutting off a few stops. I'm not going to lie, I was kind of bummed. But we decided to make the best of it and stick to the plan as closely as we could. I'm so grateful to John for being willing, and even happy, to do all the driving and allow us to see all these crazy awesome places. It ended up being kind of fun to get a second glance at everything we had already driven through too.

We made a final pit stop in Hella to top off the gas tank and grab a few supplies before heading into the Highlands. Almost as soon as we turned inland we could tell a difference in the climate. Everything got a lot dryer and less green the farther we went.

Our first stop was at Hjalparfoss, a waterfall, and the turn off did not look promising at all. I was pretty skeptical at what we would find and thought maybe googlemaps would finally do us wrong. I shouldn't have doubted the Google though. It took us right to a parking lot with a pretty double waterfall raging below.

We had lunch on a picnic table overlooking the falls,  but not long after we got out the food we were swarmed with bugs. So we ate as quickly as we could, packed it all up, and went down the path to explore the falls.

the rock formation you can climb up can be seen on the right of this picture.

There was a cool little rock formation down near the base you could climb up and get some good views from. What is it about high places? I always want to try to climb to the top.

From the top of the rock formation

The ridge we walked along

There was also a kind of small cliff/ridge that followed the canyon cut by the water and we walked along it for a while stopping now and then to look around and snap some pictures.

John on top of the ridge

We didn't stay too long, but it was a nice little pit stop and lunch break.

Waterfall number two, Haifoss, was next on the agenda and this turn off looked even less promising than the last! We had to follow this dusty, bumpy, tiny back-country road into a foothill type area. At one point we got stuck behind a giant tractor just trucking along. I kept expecting these little destination to not turn out; either because of poor directions, or just a bad outcome. BUT 8 kilometers off the main highway on a dusty, rundown, dirt road led us to an amazing spot.

I mean dude. The falls were incredible! Two gorgeous massive ones cutting out a giant canyon with views from the cliffs above.

There weren't very many people up there at all and no fences, paved pathways, overlooks, or anything. You could see the landscape as it was without any restrictions or hindrances. It was so cool!

Credit goes to John for catching this rainbow.

A very kind British lady agreed to take our picture. I didn't want to bug her for too long, so I ran down to where John was and completely disrupted the video he was taking to make him get in position for a quick pic haha.

Our drive to the next destination somehow transported us to the moon. I kid, I kid, but it seriously looked that way. We entered a lava field and it was so otherworldly. Grey jagged rock formations and ash-colored sand everywhere you looked. It was very cool and a different kind of beauty.

We stopped a few times to try to get some pictures, but they don't do the landscape justice at all. I think our iphones struggled to pick up all the intricacies due to the lack of contrast. Literally everything was a shade of grey.

Milky blue-green lake

After an hour or so of driving through this we pulled off at Sigoldugljufur. Another "secret" canyon I found in my research by reading ZigZagonEarth's blog post. I'm soooooo glad I stumbled on this post! It lead to the most amazing site either of us had ever seen.

I kept thinking as we continued on our trip we'd eventually get to the point where nothing could top what we had already seen, but man, Iceland just kept on delivering!

We stayed in that cool canyon for a while, and I actually remembered to bring our selfiestick with us this time, which came in quite handy. Oh so worth the stop and the long, round-about drive.

After getting our fill at Sigoldugljufur we continued on our drive up towards Landmannaluagar, the colorful rhyolite mountains. The landscape somehow managed to get even more strange.

Our final stop before Landmannaluagar was lake Frostastadavtn. Boy was it eerie. The place was dead silent except for the lapping waves gainst the shore. The water looked a dark black/grey and the "sand" surrounding the beach was all ashy black as well. There was no wildlife to be seen or heard aside from the annoying little flies that followed us around. Still, it was a really cool place to experience.

Lake Frostastadavatn with the Landmannaluagar mountains in the background

We finally made it to Landmannaluagar, well, almost. In all honesty it was a bit of a let down. We just didn't have the time or means to explore it and so didn't have as good of an experience with the area as I'm sure most people do. I would have loved to hike Brennisteinsalda, soak in the hot springs, and maybe even camp there for the night. But we were short on time AND didn't feel comfortable fording the river with our rental car to get to the main area and campground.

Landmannaluagar

So, rather than figuring out how to make it work, we decided to turn around and head back the way we had come so we could make it to our original camp destination and not screw up the itinerary for the next day. I'm still kind of sad about how it didn't work out for us, but sometimes you just don't have any say in the matter. The closed roads and height of the river crossing just didn't make it possible for us at the time. Instead we went back to that eerie lake to make dinner.

Afterwords we made the long drive back down to the Arnes campground (which had FREE UNLIMITED hot showers!!) where we stayed the night.

The campground

View from our campsite

Funny Things:

• The highland road was so bumpy at times I legitimately went airborne.
• Two Icelandic teens were totally flirting with John at the campsite while I was chilling inside the tent haha! It was cute.