Our destination for the day was the Saeberg hostel in Reykir, in the north west of Iceland. We were following a route suggested by Hostelling Iceland, however, with stops at important sites along the way.
View of Reykjavik from 'round the fjord:
Our wee wental caw:
Unfortunately, the maps provided by Hostelling Iceland and the car rental agency weren’t very good. Most of the roads we were supposed to travel on weren’t marked on the maps. We soon found out why – they were little more than dirt tracks leading from one small “town” to another. For example, the town of Reykholt had a large and impressive dot on the maps. However, the town consisted of an old church, a somewhat large farm, and a gas station. We decided to drive on to the next “town” on the map. A while later I noticed a small blue sign pointed to the town. I turned off at the indicated road, which led us to a camp site that boasted a small convenience store and restaurant. Obviously, we had to adjust our expectations downward a fair bit.
The river Hvita:
The gravel road just before it got really gnarly:
We were hungry, though, so we checked out the restaurant. It was quite pricey, with burgers and fries costing around $18 and salads upwards of $20. I’d seen a little kid coming out of the convenience store with a hot dog so I asked Mom and Simone if they wanted something simpler – aka a hot dog – for lunch instead. They agreed. We could smell the hot dogs when we got into the convenience store but couldn’t find them in any corner of the shop. Finally I spied some condiments behind the counter. A-ha! I asked one of the women at the counter if they sold hot dogs and she looked at me like I was the village idiot. “Of course,” she said. So, we ordered three hot dogs.
Then came the difficult decision of ordering toppings. We asked what was available. There were your typical condiments: ketchup, mustard, relish, and mayonnaise. You could also get fried onions. I swear I also heard her say you could get walnuts. We stuck with the standard condiments. None of us looked too closely at our dogs until we were outside and seated at a picnic table. None of us had ordered mayonnaise, so we were a little curious about the white stuff on top of our dogs. There was some brown stuff visible beneath that. The ketchup was nowhere to be seen. A bite revealed that the ketchup was underneath the dog, instead of on top – which, we learned later, is standard in Iceland. Through a scientific process of elimination we determined that the brown stuff was mustard and the white stuff was relish. Neither had much of a taste, so we relied on visual identification for the most part.
After lunch we decided to keep following the road, which looped back to Reykholt. After about 15 minutes of bone-jarring ruts we started to think we’d made the wrong choice. There was nowhere to turn around, though, so we kept going. The only other vehicles that passed us were giant 4x4s with raised suspensions. They probably couldn’t believe their eyes when they saw our tiny low-hanging Yaris bouncing along toward them.
We hadn’t found any of the sites recommended by Hostelling Iceland and were starting to get quite frustrated. We turned north onto the main highway again, thinking we’d missed all of the sites, when Simone spotted a sign for “Dinglefinger.” She meant to say Deildartungehver, but in the excitement of her discovery she yelled “Dinglefinger!” instead. Deildartungehver is the biggest hot spring in Europe, with 180 liters of hot water boiling to the surface every second. The fact that we nearly missed it is quite embarrassing – you can see the steam rising from the ground for miles.
Steam rising from the land around Deildartungehver:
Anyway, we miraculously found Deildartungehver and got out to admire the pools of boiling water and the clouds of steam. It was hard to take pictures because just when you focused your camera on something interesting, a cloud of steam would drift by and obscure the shot. The nice thing about the hot spring is that it didn’t stink. Mom, Simone, and I have all been to Rotorua in New Zealand, another large hot spring, and you can smell Rotorua miles before you arrive. We expected the same with Deildartungehver.
Warning sign and barrier next to a bubbling hot spring:
The next stop on our drive north was Grabrok, a large crater formed 3000 years ago during a fissure eruption. There is a walking path to the top of the crater and we figured we’d give it a try. Mom made it about 3/4’s of the way up the path, stopping just before the final ascent. Simone and I pushed on and climbed to the very top. The path at the top was quite rough and the only nod to safety was a rope strung along the outermost edge of the crater wall.
The stairs to the top of Grabrok:
View from the top of Grabrok:
From Grabrok it was a straight shot to Reykir, just north of Statharskali, on the eastern edge of the Hrutafjorthur fjord. When we arrived the weather was turning, with low hanging clouds and a cold wind. We walked around the hostel grounds for a bit and then headed inside to warm up and make dinner.
We had our first “camp” dinner at Saeberg. Food is quite expensive in Iceland so the Lonely Planet recommends bringing food with you. We’d packed a few “meal in a bag” camping packets for the nights when we were staying in remote hostels with no nearby restaurants or shops. Saeberg was one of those hostels.
The Saeberg hostel:
View of the village:
View of the fjord:
At dinner we met a British family who were staying at the hostel. They were following a similar route to us and shared some of their travel stories. Simone offered them some of the flatbread that she’d purchased at the flea market in Reykjavik. Now, we had discovered the previous night that the flatbread is cooked over charcoal and it has a very smoky smell and flavor. Simone likens the smell to an ashtray full of butts and ashes and water. It smells more like campfire to me. Anyway, Simone offered them a chance to try to the flatbread, with a warning about the smell and flavor. Surprisingly, they tried it, and the young girl quite liked it. They, in turn, offered us some fruit cake. I think we got the better end of the deal.
It was an early night for all. Simone climbed up to her bunk and spent some time reading a book. Mom and I watched “The Matador” on DVD on my computer, sharing one earbud apiece. At one point we both looked at each other and then removed our earbugs. Sure enough, Simone was tits up and snoring up a storm. We plugged our earbuds back in and watched the rest of the movie, then cleaned up and went to bed. That was around 8:30pm. There was a fair bit of to-ing and fro-ing in the hostel until 10pm, when there seemed to be a non-verbal communal decision to embrace unconsciousness.
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