Day 81 Massive seas, driving in a cloud and a campsite in the middle of nowhere

Day 81 Massive seas, driving in a cloud and a campsite in the middle of nowhere

K walking behind the waterfall - cool

We packed and left the comfort of the lodge just as the rain started. We now have 3 nights back in the van before catching the ferry back for a 3 night stop-over in the Faroe Islands on Thursday morning. The forecast was grim with both wind and rain as we rejoined our anti-clockwise circuit of Iceland making our way down past some huge waterfalls towards its most southerly point.

I had lost £150 worth of Icelandic Kroner somewhere when we had been at the lodge so we took a small detour and called in at the shop we had visited a couple of days before on the off chance they had had it handed in. To my joy they had, fumbling old man that I am I had dropped them by the counter and someone had handed them over – a good start to the day J

The sea was wild when we go there – heavy dark grey black skies, black sand beaches and high cliffs, arches, seas stacks and basalt formations made for a spectacular sight. The waves were massive and we stood and watched them for ages, the rain having let up enough for us to stop at a few places on the coast.

The south of Iceland is quite different from the north – It gets more rain/snow and it is home to most of its glaciers. They spill down towards the coast and as it is an area of regular volcanic activity this causes the road builders some challenges. The heat from a volcanic eruption causes huge volumes of water to be generated under the ice – the water eventually finds its way out and usually does suddenly with tens’s of thousands of cubic metres or water per second pouring out and down the vast alluvial places – some many Km wide. The island ring road ( route 1) is built across this and regularly has sections washed away.

K and J up high on the basalt columns

As the years have passed the civil engineering has become more and more grand. Huge levees are built to attempt to channel the water to minimise any damage. The bridges are the hardest structures to rebuild quickly and so they try to ‘protect’ them from washing away by building sacrificial channels to either side to take the pressure off the structure in times of huge flood. We drove on a long brand new section of road and bridges built following the 2010 Eyjafjallajokul eruption that grounded thousands of flights in the northern hemisphere ...the pictures of the damage caused by the massive flood of silt, rocks, mud and ice shows that their isn’t a cat in hells chance of completely engineering their way out of this regular problem.

There was another section we crossed, a near straight 28 km section that in 1996 over 6 Km disappeared and 5 Km was severely damaged following a nearby volcano under the ice. They have left some massive twisted bridge steel girders stuck in the ground as a reminder to all of just what can and does happen.

The consequences of losing a section are significant – it’s difficult to imagine as we have so many roads that there is always another route to be found and it is generally fairly easy, perhaps a few miles deviation....Not so in Iceland, there is only the one road round the island so it means that anywhere beyond the loss of road section can only be accessed by going ¾ the way round the island in the other direction – a 600 mile journey instead of a 150 mile one. If 2 sections are lost, as they more than often are then the area between is islanded.

More messing about on the beach and then late in the afternoon it was time to find a place to stay.

We had seen an advert for a campsite near the small town of Vik so after stocking up on food we  took a climbing gravel road up into the mountains to find it. Within a couple of minutes we were driving inside the cloud with the rain coming down but it was another 17 Km later, a lot more than expected, that we finally turned a corner into a small area of flat land enclosed on all sides by steep cliffs created of weird and wonderful lava formations.

A better 'pukka' camp ground would be hard to find

The rain was persistent so we put the ‘sun shade’ up – a large canopy bought to protect us from the Greek sun but equally useful as a large rain cover...5 in the van, whilst cooking etc is nigh on impossible. The hairdryer was deployed to dry the chairs out that sit open to the elements on the roof rack all day but it was cold and as soon as we had eaten, Charlie got into his hammock and the rest of us shut the van door and got the cards out.

                                                       

Day 81 Geysir ( I) to Paglir ( I)          234 Km      Total 11619 Km