I woke up at 7:30 to do my laundry today, and what a LITERAL & ENTIRE WASTE OF TIME.
This campsite had a huge washer and dryer advertised for 300kr for a wash & 100kr for a dry--but only in 100kr coins. So what do I do? I wake up at 6:50 before the front desk opens, go and get 1.000kr in coins and secure my spot in the washer before all of the moms. (Not that anyone was doing laundry on a Thursday morning, laundry is obviously a Sunday morning thing, but who knows. Different strokes.) So overall the washer was only 30m, but the dryer (which was only supposed to be 100kr) ended up only accepting payment in 5. Minute. Increments. So for about an hour I went EVERY 5 MINUTES to put 100kr in…and after it all they were still damp. While waiting I journaled and edited photos, and this very crunch and old French woman in a hot pink coat (who we had seen last night and Axelle apparently had an unpleasant moment with ) sat down at the table almost right across from me. I had my music in so I did not say bonjour (or my other French saying: je suis perdus), and before I knew it her husband sat down right next to me (maybe 6 inches of space away) and they started to spread their breakfast things out as I went to go add another coin in my dryer. When I came back not only had they put a bag of oatmeal on top of my closed computer and their grocery tote in my seat, but when I moved it they said "oh we didn't realize." I told Axelle after and she just said "eh I hate the French." If the lady in the pink coat ever reads this: know that you were the thorn of the campsite. I'd take dryers like that one for the rest of my life to never have to deal w someone like you and your micro aggressions again. Putain.
Anyways, we fixed the car and had a coffee before 9 and went to hike the falls behind the campsite. Halfway up Axelle and I drank from it a little (a behavior I’m slowly learning from her so I can't reprimand her for it anymore--it actually is pretty good!), and then she and Nathan hiked the rest of the way up but I stayed near the middle. It was a pretty steep climb, and while clawing up wouldn't be bad, all I could think about was how I did NOT want to have to slide back down. When they were done they took the gravel way down where, as I guessed, they both slipped and slid (both intentionally and unintentionally), but I took my time
on the steeper edge with spots to hold onto--landing me onn this dense pine forest (very rare for Iceland) trail, so I embraced my inner trail runner & sprinted down to the starting point of the waterfall hike to meet them. The pine needle padded ground felt almost spongy as I jumped down the declining trail to the bottom--almost like I was jumping between clouds in the sky. My way ended up being hella quicker, and for a moment they even were worried I’d fallen and died bc I was so far ahead of them and not behind them anymore. I became aware of this when I faintly heard Axelle yell "Martin! Martin! Are you alive Martin!" in her heavy French accent. I let her sweat for little before running up the main trail and bumping right into her with a laugh.
We walked to the right of the falls & mountainside when Nathan rejoined us, and headed towards another smaller falls we had seen in the distance. After we hiked the small (and a little questionable) trail along the forest line hillside we got to a wildflower field we could just run across to get down to the river. The flowers were unlike any I had become familiar with on my Ölfus mountainside or Reykjavik riding trail—these were an assortment of small, bicolored lupine-looking blossoms, gigantic buttercups, white daisies, red tinged grass, little dandelions, and petite blue buds decorating every inch of space. It felt like a movie scene sprinting down the hill between grass and flowers as tall as my hips and gleefully laughing every time someone almost lost their footing or tripped on a hidden stone. At the waterfall we had to climb some rocks to get closer—which ended up really landing us no where useful—and axelle took the risk (go figure) to climb over and on top of the falls, while I picked the scratchy route up through the shrubs (I felt like that scene in the lion king when simba is running after rafiki in the undergrowth, I really can't compare it to anything else, it wasn't entirely enjoyable.). I have no idea where Nathan went, but I'm guessing he just took off his shoes and walked the river down like we should have done. That feels like such a pick-your-own-adventure book with the three of us. I'm sure it says something about our personalities deep down too, let me know if you reading this know much about that. We eventually all met back up where the river slowed its pace, and made our way back to the car to start our drive southwest.
We stopped by the bonús in town and got chèvre (cheese Nathan was very familiar with in his hometown) and some meat, as well as a hoard of bread and potato salad for a full lunch along the fjord seaside. It was so good and I didn’t really realize how hungry I’d gotten from all of the morning activities. We sat on rocks at the base of a fjord and watched the gulls overhead and the hoards of moon jellies drifting along the bank in the clear water (? Who would've known? Also its in the middle of that photo, just click it to zoom in). We must have had at least 3 sandwiches of chèvre, honey, and salami (or potato salad for Axelle) each before packing it in.
On the drive we stopped at a viewpoint to take photos, shaved years off of our lives on some questionable gravel mountain roads, and had an impromptu snowball fight on top of a fjord mountain we were driving over. It turns out the Icelandic way of making roads between towns is to just throw a gravel track straight over an entire mountain and say best of luck. It made me seriously contemplate drug usage for a minute, especially not knowing much about manual cars or the reliability of them on questionable inclines/declines/loose road. It made me feel a little better that there was heavy machinery also driving the roads and working on it--if they made the drive, then our little Dacia is nothingggg. At our snow break, Axelle fell MULTIPLE times and it was the funniest thing, as everytime she falls she makes a little *squeak* and it kills me lolllllllll. She and Nathan needed to get some energy out too, as they ran around more than I felt inclined to as we enjoyed looking across the tops of the towns we had just left.
As we worked our way around the next finger of the WFR, and being one of the only cars on the road for the last several hours, we finally found the perfect, beautiful, and semi-secluded waterfall for our skinny dipping bucket list. It was oriented sideways so the swimming basin was deep and the current pushed the water away from the river downhill, making it ideal if you lost footing. At first the 43*F cold water was (as usual) shocking, but we swam several times and it got much much better by the end. As Axelle says: "its good for ze bodyyyyy." After our swims we spent a bit of time laying out on the grass to warm up and dry off in the sun, until a biker stopped and almost walked up on us (oopsies). It was absolutely hilarious, and helpful too, as we really needed to keep moving. The next stop was this hugeeee waterfall (Dynjandi) that was in FlyOver Iceland, and I definitely got a complete thigh workout in climbing
up to it despite the fact that it was a marked heritage site with footpaths and such. The trail was steep! I saw some people doing it with kids on their shoulders or strapped to their backs--I'll add that to my list of reasons not to have a kid. The view at the top was 100% worth it though--with a panoramic view across the fjord, and rainbows shattering all around us from the mist and spray. Truly magnificent.
We found a beachside campsite near the end of fjord country, which ended up being off of the MOST extreme road we had yet to be on, but Nathan did FANTASTIC driving. It was nail bitingly bad, but we’ve now found ourselves at a home for the night along a field overlooking a flat beach. It feels the exact opposite of last night, but definitely the same in that the other campers are as rude as the lady in the pink coat. Essentially the parking spots are just assigned by loose sections in one huge open field by zones (A, B, C, etc, not physically marked but generally circled on a map) so we parked in C zone (as we picked that one since we didn't need electric hookup) because no one was next to us, and started to set up the Dacia for nighttime. After we had gone to check out the *tiny tiny* shop next to the shower/cooking facility cabins (that were SO cute), we went back to get our shower and dinner things & this lady (who had just arrived) loudly approached us, yelling because we were too close to "her" section within the zone. Apparently there are invisible lines we, and no one else around us, saw, and we were forcing her group to split up as they had another camper arriving they wanted to park next to. While I battled for my life to refrain from laughing, Axelle almost got into a fight with her (which would’ve both been funny and unfortunate…for the lady) so we shrugged her off (as at this point her children were hiding in the camper and peeking out of the door, along with her husband L O L ) and moved our car to the absolute, direct middle of the field. It had been her kid's soccer field, but oh well bestie you can't have it all.
That being said, the middle of the field was kinda nice though, because we had equal access to the beach, showers, and road, and exponentially less bugs than along the edge next to the water. We took our shower and cooking things up to the main areas, and I thought about buying another sweater there, because they were obviously handmade and so unique, but decided against it as I don’t have room in my bag. The shower on the other hand, was amazinggggg. Axelle and I used the handicapped shower (an entirely separate little shower house with black stone tile and a nice bench along the wall and into the shower. (Key to note: There was no one handicapped at the campsite so we didn’t feel bad. But when that same mom from earlier ended up knocking on our door and waiting to use it all for herself, she tried to give us a disgusted look as we exited. I mean come onnnnn.)
We had bought beef and some veggies at the store, so I made us tacos for dinner (beef/onion/garlic with lime, cheese, and salsa…so more like burritos I guess) and they were BUSSIN. Definitely hit the spot, as the sun sank into the the mountainous horizon and the kids quieted--it was another objectively good night. This campsite will be on my top 5 list for sure. We cleaned our dishes and brushed our teeth before ending the day watching the second fantastic beasts (Crimes of Grindelwald) together. Turns out Nathan likes Harry Potter as much as I do, and took it as his personal mission to explain the entire plot to Axelle in French so she could fully *appreciate* the film with us. What a winner he is. He also translated some of the French in the movie for me #score . Axelle seemed less amused by the film than us, but she reminds me of Mary in that way--not favoring the deep symbolism or artistic expression in comparison to the overt humor or plot objective.
Near the end we noticed the sunset had cast a violet and rose palette across the sky and wet sand--a scene that almost took our breathe away. We took a few videos and went out to marvel, but for the most part it was just nice to sit and stare while we soaked in our last 'real' night on the road. Tomorrow night we will camp closer to Reykjavik, and mostly spend the day trying to get there...our adventure is just about complete. :)
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