Chilling Icelandic wind

Iceland welcomed me with bad weather. Only 2 degrees and moist, heavy wind blowing from the ocean. It quickly forced me to wear two pairs of trousers and two fleeces. But with good partner in crime I can survive here. After long waiting for flight we both needed to have some rest, so we headed form Keflavik to Reykjavik to crush at some closed camping site. Just for few hours. City centre offered us warm place with free WiFi, so we used it to find accommodation for first night. Host was great, and we had interesting conversation about quite odd topics.

Highway 1 - Ringroad

Next day offered us something completely different. We hitched south-east to discover hot springs and place where two tectonic plates split.

People use geothermal energy to heat their houses or to produce electricity. You can see pipes lying on the ground and sometimes steam inside of them makes strange noise. You may think you are standing next to some futuristic highway!

We found nice place to pitch tent, just next to 3 m tall waterfall. That night was still OK. It wasn't raining all the time. At least we were dry in the morning. Heavy rain still had to come. We moved just 12 km to next town with plan to see more fancy geological wonders, but after one more night outside we gave up. Heavy wind and rain during night and constant drizzle since early morning forced us to think again. Forecasts predicted rain for next week in whole southern part of Iceland.

Wild camping in the middle of town

So we hitched again but north-west now.

It ended up with a lot of Icelandic hospitality in some small farm next to long fjord. Our hosts gave us nice and quite long trip. We went to visit their neighbors and some places in really remote areas. Over 50 km long gravel roads are exceptional for me, but here it's nothing special. In small town at the opposite part of peninsula in small shop I bought warm, original, hand-made, Icelandic sheep wool hat for just 2200 ISK. Bargain! And believe me, it was something that I always dreamed of. OK, just since I landed here to be honest.

Turf hut - some Icelandic history

Sunset over farmlands

Casey I guess

And some bad news: One of my trousers thorn in place where my bottom is. No worries. I'll figure out how to live with that.

Another day we moved north and reached Akureyri in few hours of thumbing. Not without perturbations of course. This small town called capital of north offered big camp-site for free. Almost all camp-sites are closed till June, so we used last occasion to use those facilities without spending a penny. Night was cold, but actually only outside. Tent and Quechua's sleeping bags provides good level of comfort even if temperature reaches zero. Shame it doesn't provide electricity and free WiFi. But luckily local bookstore does.

Dust on the road

Advertisement in Akureyri

Just funny name

Internet gives informations about weather forecasts and changes our plans. Avoiding long and heavy rain became my new hobby. Akureyri offered us great dumpster diving opportunity. We did it twice and found a lot of food in great state. Some of products we found weren't even expired! It saved us spending money for two days. And of course my diet became richer. At least for a while. Town itself isn't very interesting.

Results of dumpster diving

We moved to Blönduós for two nights, so I'm using opportunity to update my blog. I already checked swimming pool with very clean and warm weather. Tomorrow we're going to climb some tiny mountain and maybe to try some hot spot.

Sand is black here

Little tiger