ICELAND 2018 3 Days 8-10

ICELAND 2018 3 Days 8-10
Day 8. I had not lined any accommodation up for this night. We do enjoy having a little flexibility written into the schedule to allow for spontaneous reactions to scenery. We wanted to move on a little bit, but not too much, so called in at the tourist bureau at Hoffn, and found a nice looking farm to the west that had room for us: Skalafell Farm.

Before we went there, we had seen on the map a mountain we wanted to climb, so headed there first. The problem was that there was a river we had to cross with water that was thigh high. I can’t climb mountains in my gum boots, and did not want to saturate my hiking boots that i was wearing all day every day, so I sussed around the place while Lenie waited patiently on the other side, having made an icy crossing in her higher boots. They still let the water in however, as seen below.
IMG_0882      (click on it to see 9 sec movie)
This only took an hour, so after we checked in, we were eager for more, and walked to the farm’s glacier (doesn’t every farm have a lagoon and glacier out the doorstep?). Our hostess said this was a “three-hour circuit”, with several nice mountains in addition to the glacier. It also turned out to have wildflower beds and reindeer.  Even with all those distractions, it only took us a bit over two hours, which meant we returned just in time for our delicious dinner at the farm. For a change we at real food instead of soup.

After dinner, we went to the base of the Heinabergsjökull that we’d seen from our walks earlier in the day. Straight ahead in this photo is the mountain i didn’t club in my gumboots. There were more reindeer there. The other guests at the farm were thrilled that we’d seen two groups of reindeer. We were pretty stoked too.

Day 9. I so enjoyed the hike yesterday afternoon that I did it again this morning, further reducing the three hours down to one and three quarters. Lena used that time to get some work done. It’s nice to be able to do our own thing as well as enjoy our fun together. The whole time we were in Iceland, she was juggling her work to fit in with everything else. She is her own boss, so can manage such things.

After a picnic lunch, we moved base to Hoffn HI (YHA) and then hiked from a place on the map called Hoffell (which had nothing more than a carpark). We climbed up above a glacier called Hoffellsjokull and further, up a mountain, named Geitafellstindur, which was exceptionally steep and loose in the later stages. Lena was not happy with her mum there, but was very brave – much braver than I had been crossing zero degree waters.
That night in the Youth Hostel, we delighted in having a kitchen, and cooked up a huge stirfry of veggies.

Day 10.
The major item on the agenda for this day (and the morning of day 11) was to visit the mighty Vestrahorn. As with everything I had planned, I was so glad I had given each place sufficient time in the agenda to give space for a “bad hair day”. Vestrahorn had one of those on this day; truth be said, Iceland did. We had a restful day of very little photography, some short walks, and probably too much eating. But I sussed out the Vestrahorn, inspecting the location and eyeing up all possible andes for the next day’s attack. The photos here are from that next day, as our first move in the onwards journey east.

I did say it was a “bad hair day”!