If you haven’t already, please be sure to read about the previous days of my road trip in Iceland:
So day 3 was full of surprises and failures. It ended up being the most frustrating and yet incredible days of our trip. We didn’t head out from the cottage until noon, so most of our route was planned that morning. Like Day 2, we had picked out many sights to see. Little did we know, we weren’t going to be able to accomplish everything on our list. There were a few obscure and more remote locations on our list that didn’t cooperate with us. Still, this day was incredible and was the day we found our favorite location in the country.
Reyðarbarmur
The most famous point of interest on our route was Gullfoss, a massive and powerful waterfall. We set our course towards Gullfoss with a few stops planned on the way—it didn’t take us long to become distracted and deviate from the route. After winding around Þingvallavatn lake, we had found ourselves in a sea of yellow. For miles and miles, moss-covered volcanic rock blanketed the earth with one small mountain nearby. We had noticed an unpaved road heading toward it. The road was marked with a sign that read Laugarvatnshellir—good luck pronouncing that. Curiosity had bitten us. So we pulled off onto the road and slowly made our way down the long path. The road was riddled with grooves and potholes, so it took some time to even get to the base of the mountain.
At the base, we saw that the road continued upwards around the edge of the mountain. So we trekked towards the peak in our SUV, and when we arrived, that’s when we knew we found something special. Uptop was a second sea of yellow with the rest of the mountain’s peaks looming in the distance. I always assumed the mountain was called Laugarvatnshellir, but it wasn’t until recently that I discovered its name to be Reyðarbarmur. There is hardly any information online about this mountain. During our visit, we also knew this mountain wasn’t visited often. The fact that it’s not well known I think added to the charm. I fell in love with it so much that this ended up being the base of my tattoo design.
While Reyðarbarmur may not be known, it does have two attractions that draw slightly more attention, Laugarvatnshellir Cave and the lava tube Gjabakkahellir (aka Blueberry Cave). Unfortunately, we didn’t know about Gjabakkahellir but I wouldn’t recommend cave exploring without a guide. Still, these two locations are not a common tourist attraction.
Laugarvatnshellir
On our way back down Reydharbarmur, we did get a chance to check out Laugarvatnshellir cave. It’s more of an indention in the side of the mountain than a true cave. The attraction here is a small replica home built into the cave. This site does offer tours, but the house was not open to the public at the time of our visit.
What makes Laugarvatnshellir special, is that it’s one of the few caves Icelanders have lived in. Traditional Iceland homes were turf houses—little cottages with the earth built up around them. In 1910, a young couple took a different approach to the turf house and built a home in the small cave. They were followed by another couple in 1918 who decided to make the caves their home. Laugarvatnshellir is believed to be man-made but experts have not been able to determine when the caves were created.
Lunch Break
Back on the road again, we stopped at the nearby town Laugarvatn for a bite to eat at Galleri Cafe. This was a small bed and breakfast— plus souvenir shop. It was quaint and the food was very traditional Icelandic. I don’t remember many of the options but the smoked salmon on rye bread didn’t sound terrible to me. I may have mentioned this in a previous post, but I am a picky eater. I can say it was flavorful, and a bit much for me! Richard didn’t mind claiming it.
Brúarfoss
One of my most anticipated waterfalls I wanted to see was Brúarfoss. It’s not a big waterfall but it’s known for its iconic blue and stunning water. This waterfall is known as Iceland’s secret waterfall—or was. There is now a 2.2-mile hike to the waterfall on the official Brúarfoss trail, but at the time of our attempted visit, there was no trail and the GPS could not locate the waterfall. Unfortunately, this was the first of our failures this day. We were unable to locate this waterfall without trespassing and eating up all of our time. While we didn’t get to experience the waterfall there were experiences to be made—including a last-ditch effort trail run to find it.
Gullfoss
Here it was, the most northern stop in the golden circle route, Gullfoss. Due to its popularity and ease of access, it is a major tourist stop. Even if you don’t like crowds, you can not pass up the opportunity to see the might of one of Iceland’s most iconic waterfalls. It can fill around 50 Olympic size pools per minute! Gullfoss begins as a series of stair-like falls on the Hvítá river before the river just drops into the canyon. As mentioned on Day 2, the Hvítá river continues down to the town of Selfoss.
Exploring Gullfoss is made easy with the well maintained and secure walking trails. The walking path leads right above the large fall. With the area completely roped off, there is no reason for safety concerns as long you respect the boundaries in place. Still, seeing the power and the sheer drop this waterfall creates is enough to create a healthy reverence for Gullfoss.
Once we had our fun on the fall itself, we trekked back up towards the information center. At the top, there is another path heading back towards Gullfoss but atop the canyon ridge instead. The path doesn’t go far but gives you a nice view of the waterfall from above and with less of a crowd.
Haifoss
At the time of our visit to Iceland, Haifoss was considered the second tallest waterfall in Iceland—second only to Glymur. Records can be in dispute with glaciers moving and ice melting, so new measurements have been made on other waterfalls bumping Haifoss officially down to the fourth place in height. Unfortunately, we weren’t confident of the road conditions leading to the waterfall, so we eventually turned around and never got to experience it.
Hrunalaug
After a lot of travel, it was time to visit some hot springs! Many hot springs are public amenities or commercialized attractions, but Hrunalaug was a natural and hidden hot spring.
Hrunalaug is easy to access but not easy to find. It’s a natural spring on private land. The spring has a small hut-like structure in the middle of the stream with a pool on its doorstep. The pool is very small and not able to hold a crowd. There is a second pool past the hut but it too is rather small. Despite being hidden, it is well sought out by adventure-seeking tourists, making it unusable if another party is occupying it. This was the case of our visit.
Maybe it’s the mystery that attracts others to the spring. History and information about Hrunalaug are few and hard to come by but some believe it may have once been used as a sheep trough.
Mika
For any trip I take, it is a must to try out some local pizza! During our road trip, I had a book, Frommer’s EasyGuide to Iceland, that offered many suggestions on what to do and where to eat. Mika happened to be one of the suggestions for the area we were located in. The reviews online seemed good and the menu offered pizzas! So we decided to head there in between our hot spring search.
The restaurant is located in Reykholt, which honestly felt like the middle of nowhere in Iceland. Mika had a very charming allure to it, the building was designed to resemble a turf house and the food was delicious. I’ve been here twice now on two different trips and everyone I’ve been with has enjoyed their meals. After the first visit, I will always order the same thing for every future visit. The pizza I ordered was a simple meat & cheese pizza but it has a twist—the sauce is a raspberry-chili sauce! I know it sounds strange for a pizza but it is amazing! It’s hard to describe, but the closest thing I can describe it as is a sweet bbq pizza,
The Secret Lagoon
After pizza, we were determined to make our hot spring search a success! So we made our way to the Secret Lagoon located near the town Flúðir. It is the older cousin of the Blue Lagoon. Created in 1891 this is the oldest pool in the country! It was known as “Gamla Laugin”, meaning “The Old Pool”. Unlike the modern Blue Lagoon, the Secret Lagoon tries to maintain a historical image of the pool itself. The facilities do offer modern amenities including a bar, but it does not offer the same spa treatment.
The pool is murky and resembles more of a pond. Even though it’s manmade, it has more of a natural feel to it than the Blue Lagoon. The source of the heated water does come from a natural spring though and you can see where the scalding water is flowing into the pool. It also has a small geyser that erupts nearby creating a mist in the air. With the dark water, the rocks, and the mist-filled air, the Secret Lagoon offers a very mystical vibe. Plus you often can find the lagoon less crowded than it’s highly visited cousin. Overall, Joe, Richard, and I agreed that this pool was our favorite of the two.
Kerið
Heading back home we decided to make one last stop before calling it day. Earlier we had passed Kerið, which was a volcanic crater and we decided to check this out. What attracted us to this site was how different the landscape was compared to the rest of the country we experienced so far. A lot of the soil here was a deep magenta hue due to the red volcanic rock.
The crater itself offers a unique color palette. Green moss covers the red and magenta earth, with a blue lake in the bottom of the crater. The crater does offer a trail leading around the ridge of the crater and on the path leading down to the bottom of a lake.
The area didn’t take long for us to explore but provided us with another memory of Iceland’s unique landscape.
