Saturday Oct 1
The beautiful waterfall Skógafoss gave us a rainbow as we began our hike up the river. This is the beginning of the Fimmvörduháls trek, 23km from here to Pórsmörk, past the eruption site of Eyjafjallajökull in 2011. We hiked for a couple of hours before turning back, photographing waterfalls, each more amazing than the last. Supposedly there are 22 chutes along this section of the trek. These waterfalls are very deceiving in pictures - without human scale, they appear small. In reality, they are immense, spray rising into the air like rain. The trail is signposted, but we could just follow the sound. It was easy to find a perfect picnic spot!
Our hot pot search continued to Seljavallalaug, a pool built in the 1920's so local children could learn to swim. About a 10 minute hike up a river valley brought us to our most "in the wild" pool yet. This was our first experience with algae, but I tried not to think about that and just enjoy the warm water and the mountain view. We enjoyed our earlier hike in the sun, so now we have a little rain!
As we travel south, there are definitely more tourists. With only two restaurants in Vik, even this time of year there is a wait, so I can't imagine the crowd in summer.
