Almost gone...

Anyway, after spending a couple of hours in Jökulsárlón just chilling out. I realised it was still only early afternoon and I thought that I might try to make it to Vik that night as well to camp. Jökulsárlón however is not a good place to get a hitch from, the cars are usually packed with people and you need to walk quite a way down the road to look forlorn enough to get a ride. Get a ride I did though, from a lovely german couple who took me as far as the hotel near Skaftafell, with a little side trip to Litla Höf. It’s only a few houses but it also hides a beautiful 19th century turf church that was built on the site of a pagan temple.

It actually looked a little spooky in the gloomy weather that had descended and the fact that the churchyard was filled with bumps that were obviously graves, but minus the headstones didn’t help (I don’t know why that is).

After getting dropped off I managed to get a lift with a Czech couple as far as the turn off to the information centre for Skaftafell National Park. By then I was faced with rain and what appeared to be a road to completely nowhere! So after trying to get another hitch for two hours I gave in and walked back to the information centre and the camping site that's situated there. It was actually a really lovely place, not that far from the Glacier.

There are some great walks there and I wish I hadn’t been so focused on getting to see everything else before I left Iceland, I guess it just means there’s something else to come back for later!

The following morning seemed like it would be a good day (see the blue sky in the picture above), but unfortunately it didn’t last that long and it was soon raining. Luckily for me I only had to wait about an hour or so to get a lift with the Awesome Camper Van Crew. Why were they awesome? Well... 1) they gave me a lift in their camper van (these things NEVER give you a lift usually), 2) they were a throughly nice bunch of guys, 3) they gave me hot coffee made from glacial ice they’d taken from Jökulsárlón AND dark chocolate McVites and 4) they took me way further than I’d hoped for!

So say hi to Grubi and Alex...

Hansi...

and finally Muck and Michael.

I can’t say a big enough thank you to these guys. They were really fun to hang out with and I was saved from a very dreary day in the rain. I also got to see Skógarfoss which is a really cool waterfall on the way.

By the time we reached Hvolsvöllur (about 250km from where they picked me up) where the guys finally dropped me off, the weather wasn’t raining so much and I thought I’d make a push for Selfoss. Catching a ride with another lovely Icelandic man (who works for the weather station) I made it to Selfoss by about 5pm.

Now to be honest, there's probably more going on in Selfoss than I found. However I wasn't really looking that much! One hostel check-in later, I'd eaten, showered and poured myself a Kaldi to catch up on the blog stuff. I shared a room with two cool guys, Robert and Matthew, and we spent some time basking in the appreciation of each others photos. Matthew had just done the a lot of hiking in an area I really had wanted to see and Robert had spent some time in the same areas as me but captured completely different images (love that about photography, not everyone see's the same thing). Oh and you should check out his blog www.projectpineapple.blogspot.com, he's done some really interesting traveling for a pretty cool cause.

In the morning, Matthew headed off to Akureyri and Robert was off to Greenland (how cool is that!). I spent a ridiculous amount of time fighting with various internet connections trying to access some sites I really needed to check before I moved on.  Had a good but annoyingly delayed conversation with a friend via FB before giving up and starting the hitching again.

I honestly couldn't decide where I wanted to go today.  Part of me wanted to go to Gulfoss and Geysir, then on to Thingvellir (another one with an icelandic sign for the Th that I don't have) and part of me wanted to go to Thingvellir and then to Reykjavik to hang out. As  I couldn't decide I thought I'd let the next hitch choose, so when Gunnar said he was driving to Thingvellir I figured Gulfoss and Geysir could wait a while. Gunnar was an excellent hitch to get as he decided to give me a potted history on the area as we drove and pointed out the names of all the surrounding mountains etc. It was really lovley, I just wished I'd taken notes so I could fill you in!

After he dropped off in the car park at Thingvellir, I hung around for a couple of hours and just chilled out. It's a really interesting site, not only did the first Icelandic parliment get held there in 930. Yes that's 930, not 1930! It's also the best example of a fissure zone, where two tectonic plates meet. Check this out...

it's just awesome! The weather might not have been great but it was still a cool place to hang out.

After that  I caught my final hitch to Reykjavik and booked myself into a hostel for the night. To be honest I was more than a bit exhausted and it was nice to chill out with a little mooch around, some good food and no need to play tourist.

Saying that  I did manage to get a picture of the one thing I'd missed last time...

I really love this, it's just such a cool sculpture!

Anyway, I'm now sitting on the fantastically comfy couch at Ko-leen and Davi∂'s in Keflavik. They were kind enough to let me surf with them when I first got here and its great to catch up with them again before I leave. Tomorrow I need to catch my flight to Oslo at 5.30am, which means not a lot of sleep tonight as I'll have to attempt rucksack tetris in order to get all my stuff packed properly again!

I'm looking forward to Norway, but maybe not with as much excitement as I thought I would. I've met some truly awesome and lovely people here. Seen landscapes that have continually taken my breath away. I've had some great food, drank some excellent beer and been reminded that there is more kindness and openess in people than I'd ever expected to find.

I will be back eventually though and there's still so much more to see! Maybe some of you will make it out here too and I'll get to drool over your photos instead ;)

See you in Norway!
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