The road back...

We woke up in Klaustar (the short version of the town's name) to a chilly RV with overcast skies outside. I fired up the heaters and in no time the RV was toasty, but we weren't sure about the water situation so we skipped the showers. Before shoving off, we explored the camp area and the waterfall, or foss, across the road. 

So many Rovers...

Stjornarfoss was only a coupled hundred yards across the road from the camp area. 

Iceland travel pictures pro tip: the helpful place name signs like Stjornarfoss above make really good memory joggers for when you get back home. Take a picture of them in the foreground and it'll help you remember where you were when you can't find it on the map!

While killing time in the airport before our flight home, I picked up several books, two of which bear mentioning here. The first is "Island on Fire", by Alexandra White and Jeff Kanipe, which is a non-fiction account of the 1783 eruption of Laki and its effects that lasted for years in Iceland and northern Europe. The account of the eruption mainly focuses on the journal of Jon Steingrimsson a priest in Klaustar who conducted a mass during the eruption that coincided with a stop in the lava flow towards town. It is well known history in Iceland, but I wish we had know about it because we were camping in ground zero of the eruption and its effects on the local area. Additionally, as I type this on September 30th, there is a jokullhlaup or glacier flood that is affecting the same area.

The second book is a novel, "Operation Napoleon" by Arnaldur Indridason. This one is about a mysterious 1945 plane crash on Vatnajokull and the 1999 secret mission by the US military to recover the plane. Also a good book since it covers a lot of the same ground we tread upon while we were there.

We encountered many bikers on the second day of the road trip and this day as well. None looked as miserable as this guy who was pedaling in to a rainy, 30-40 mph headwind. 

Once we got back on the road, we skipped breakfast and endured a building storm. The winds had increased and rain was more steady.

We made our way back to Vik and decided to stop for a few minutes to check out some areas we didn't have time for the previous day.

Super Jeep van and a Camel Trophy inspired Disco.

More Unimogs.

Filling up this time was more of a disaster. Several people in front of us had issues with the PIN card and as you could see were also stubborn enough to force the hose to fit on the opposite side of their car, rather than drive around to the correct side.

We decided to take a short detour to the western side of Vik to see if the puffins were home. Boy, were they!

Puffins are a short winged black and white bird with an orange beak. They nest in the cliffs outside of Vik because the dive off the cliff helps them fly out to the waves to find food. The closer we got, the more it became apparent how many of them there were! Thousands and thousands!

One of the puffins in mid dive.

A cool Army Surplus shelter set up on the beach parking lot that sold woolen and felt wares.

Saying goodbye to Vik.

Climbing up the hill out of Vik, I made a split second decision to turn on the road down to Reynisfjall to the black sands beach that looked out on to Reynisdrangar.

Reynisdrangar.

Cool basalt cliffs with the hexagonal columns of basalt.

There was a neat little cafe called the Black Sands Beach Restaurant. The traditional meat (lamb) soup was fantastic as well as the ciabatta like bread. And don't forget the chocolate cake!

Super Duty represented in Iceland!

Skogafoss. We were getting short on time so we didn't get to hike up to it. This is the southern terminus of a hike that we did later in the trip.

One of Iceland's few jails. 

Did I mention the road signs and how they state the wind speeds? One of them had it in red letters as 21 meters per second. That's about 47 mph! We later heard there were gusts even higher, equivalent to 80 mph. I believe it because the drive from Selfoss back to Grindavik was some of the most challenging driving I have ever done.
At first it wasn't too bad because it was a tail or quartering wind, but every so often the road would turn and we would take it broad side to the RV. I think a car would have been okay, but not our box on wheels! Things really got interesting when we to drive up and over a mountain ridge less than five miles outside of Grindavik. Coming down the hill, with a drop off on both sides, I'm pretty sure I felt us go up on three wheels. There had to have been daylight under the one rear wheel.
I was going slow but that didn't help. I brought the RV to a controlled stop at a gravel pullout about halfway down the hill. That didn't help either. Even sitting still, the RV was being blown about. I didn't want to sit there waiting for us to be blown over on our side so I cautiously made our way down off the hill. It was only a little bit better but at least the threat of tumbling down the hill was gone.

We made our way in to town and stopped on a side street to pack up and tidy up the RV before turning it back over to Johanna. Once it was cleaned up, we stopped in and got the instructions on what to do about fuel, water and sewage. Oh, yeah, the sewage. I was secretly hoping that it would have magically disappeared, but oh, no, not so lucky. Remember the gale force winds? Yep, still blowing. It was helpful that there was another RVer there to explain a few things to me and to also block the wind somewhat, but every time I walked back to the RV, I was showered by his gray water that was supposed to be dumping in to the grate. With the 49 mph wind it was going sideways all over me! Joyous.

That was over with a modicum of fecal contamination, but I survived.

Ashley commenting on the spacious shower stall/bathroom/sink

Another Rover!

Once we fueled the RV and turned it over to Johanna, Marianna arrived to take us to Reykjavik. The wind was still steady but we made it through because we were in a much lower profile car. We navigated in to the down town and found our way to the top of the street that the apartment was on.

Saying our thanks and goodbyes, we left Marianna and made our way down the Rainbow Road to the apartment. Successfully entering three codes through three locked doors, we finally met up with Team Rumley.

We unpacked and sat down to enjoy their stories from their North Land excursions in Aukereyri as well as a day trip to Greenland. As it was getting on towards dinner we ventured out to Islandi Barrin or the Icelandic Bar. Dinner was a great Icelandic Beer as well as an amazing broccoli cheddar soup.

An actual slide in an outdoor store that was across the street from our apartment.

We tried to stay awake, but the travels got the best and we turned in before the rest of the Team arrived at 1 AM.

Next: Team BRMRG et al assembles!