Day 6: Bodadalur to Landbrotalaug
Day 7: Landbrotalaug to Lysahúll
In the morning, we biked west, alongside Hvammafjördur.
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| Biking next to Hvammsfjördur |
It turned to dirt, and after about 25km, we turned inland and began climbing.
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| Beautiful, empty dirt climbing over the Snaefell peninsula |
As we descended the other side, we were on the lookout for some lava caves shown on our map. There were many signs which we found difficult to interpret (never mind pronounce!). At one of them, we discovered this carnage of raw eggs. All over my backpack.
In the end, we probably went straight past the lava caves, but there was no missing the weird lava formations lower in the valley.
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| Wild lava towers flank the road |
We turned onto a side road and followed it onto a jagged lava field carpeted in yellow colored moss.
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| Moss lining a volcanic caldera |
We spent an hour walking around, including exploring some shallow but incredibly sharp caves, and descending into the cone of an obvious volcano.
From there we continued down to the coast, where we were looking for a natural geothermal pool we knew to be in the vicinity (recommended to us by a German family we had met a few days previously). After several wrong turns we found it. However the pool is very small, big enough for only 3 or 4 people, and was occupied by some icelandic folks. We resolved to wait it out. We biked off to find water, and meanwhile, a string of cars arrived! There were thus about a dozen people people waiting. Whoops. Some of them went over to a second (less cool!) pool we hadn't seen, but many left when they saw the crowds. We were committed, so got out our stove and began cooking dinner. After about half an hour, the Icelanders were ready to leave, and there was no one besides us waiting. We crossed the stream to the pool, carrying our partially cooked dinner, and got in.
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| Cooking dinner in a natural geothermal pool! |
The pool is a perfect hot tub temperature, and is actually formed of a sunken lava bubble (air bubble in volcanic rock) about 4ft deep. The opening of the pool is only about 4 feet across, but it widens under the surface. To the east and west, the sides of the valley rose up to glacially-carved peaks. A perfect spot for dinner.
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| Selfie |
In the morning, we headed west along the coast, stopping at Gerduberg to check out some very cool lava columns. We also found delicious blueberries along the base of the wall.
Once again, we were tempted to climb, but limited ourselves to chimneying up between a column and the main wall from which it had separated. 
From there we continued west, into a headwind, but were blessed with some sunshine! Our first since the morning we arrived in Reykjavik. We stopped at Okelda spring, which produces naturally carbonated water. The rationale for this stop was that we had just about run out of water purification drops, so needed to rely on trustworthy water sources. We rode fast on good pavement towards the naturally carbonated Lysahúll hot springs, and got there in the early evening, just in time to visit. The whole day we rode with dramatic light at views of mountains to our right. In the distance we caught a glimpse of Snaefellsjokull, the volcano at the end of the peninsula.
We were looking forward to the facilities of this more developed hot spring. By facilities, we meant showers. Getting wet is different from getting clean. Unfortunately, it was closed early on Sundays! We filled our water bottles at a beautiful stream coming straight off of the mountains, and then found a spot to camp, with a stunning view.
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| Windy but pretty! |
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