Iceland: Finally on the Road

 From Friday, September 18th

Well, I’m on the road.  I picked up my campervan from Go Campers in a suburb of Reykjavik around noon and from there I headed to the grocery store around the corner (good location) to get the last of the groceries I needed.  My original plan had been to do that Friday morning, but after catching a glimpse of how small the two groceries stores within walking distance of the guesthouse were, I decided to wait and see if there was a bigger, better option.  I went to Bonus around the corner from Go Campers, which is known to be the cheapest grocery store in Iceland.  I had already brought with me things like rice, pasta, and snack, but needed some of those things you can’t really bring with you like bread, fruit, and a few other things I found and decided would be good.

My campervan has room for three (really two) in the front.  Snack, waterbottle, map, and coat get to ride up front with me.  Everything else got put into the back.  The back has room for what is probably close in size to a double bed, maybe a little shorter.  But when you don’t have the back laid out into a bed there is a nice area to sit, with a little table that folds down.  Underneath the bed area there is storage space that fit one medium sized suitcase.  It would definitely be much fuller if there were two people in here instead of just one, but for one it is great.  It came with a campstove, pots, pans, cooking and eating untensils, and basic cleaning supplies.  It also has a light and heat that run off a separate battery from the car one, but charges when the car is running.  The heater does quite well actually.  I put it too high to start on the first night and nearly roasted until I opened the door to let some cool air in.  I shut it off for a little while before putting it back on a lower temp.  The range on the van is roughly 1000km, though people recommend not letting it get below ½ a tank of fuel just because there are some places on the island where gas is far between.  It runs on diesel fuel, which is cheaper here than regular fuel so that’s exciting.  Fuel prices I’ve seen seem to be in the 330-360 kr/liter.  One thing that sucks about it is no cruise control.  I’m seem to hit the speed limit +/- 10 kph.

Inside of my campervan, set up for eating.

So first day on the road.  I started by figuring out how to get out of Reykjavik.  Nice thing about roundabouts is if you miss your exit you can go around ahead. Hahaha (yeah, it’s happened a few times already).  I first headed up to Thingvellir National Park, which was a nice introduction to Iceland, I think.  Pretty views for sure.  I didn’t want to spend too long there simply because I wanted to make sure I got to my first camp before the sun went down because it was my first night with the van, but there were hiking trails and such I could have gone on (and still could if I end up back before to Reykjavik a day early.

From there I went to Geysir.  Yes, that is where the word “geyser” comes from.  There are two big geyers at Geysir.  Strokkur is the one there that goes off more frequently.  Every 7-10 minutes is what it says.  I saw eruptions of probably 30-50 feet while I was there.  Geysir itself only erupts when there’s been recent earthquake activity and its considered dormant at the moment.  There are other boiling mudpots and geothermal activity right there.  Their parking lot was giantic and perhaps only about 1/5th full.  I guess that gives you an idea of how busy it can be.

From Geysir, I went to Gullfoss, one of the most amazing waterfalls I’ve ever seen.  Now, it’s been a while since I’ve been to Niagara Falls, but I feel like the amount of water rushing over these falls is way more than Niagara (I didn’t bother actually looking it up).  It was a really cool waterfall that is a doubler waterfall, and basically changes direct between the first and second falls.  Pictures really don’t do it justice...I took about a million of them there.

Gullfoss

From Gullfoss my plan had been to camp in Fludir.  But turns out I was 3 days too late and the campground in Fludir had shut down for the season (I’m right on the shoulder season - some campgrounds are still open for the next few weeks, while others are closing - and others are open yearround).  That meant I had to find somewhere else to stay, so I went to Selfoss.  It was the next closest campground.  There were probably somewhere betweeen 20 and 30 campervans, campers, and tents (only saw 2 of those) at the campground.  There was a kitchen common area, a space with (free and hot) showers, and toilets.  I took a shower because free showers aren’t something that every campground has so I figured I might as well take advantage of that.  I kind of got things orangized to start with.  After that I made supper on my campstove.  Fried rice and veggies.  Then by the time I had gotten my bed all laid out it was practically bedtime.  But before I went to bed I made the decision to change my original plan for the day.  I headed west, instead of east.  I wanted to see an erupting volcano.