Dettifoss road to Myvatn

Distance covered: 25 miles

I’m happy to face one final road walk today. The wimp in me got scared yesterday and I’m fine with that middle ground in not giving up but taking the less compromising route. It won’t be a memorable journey but I’ll be worry free no matter the weather. Real wilderness will need to wait a bit longer.

The forecast was similarly wet for today but in fact the morning is calm and mildly bright despite the cloudy skies.

A new dawn, still on the road

I walk the rest of the Dettifoss road without meeting a single vehicle. Eventually I get to the junction with the ring road.

Need no GPS

The ring road has some traffic but nothing dramatic. Most of the time I can walk off to the side of the road, well away from the traffic and there are even sections with some sort of parallel dirt road that I can have all to myself. There are even sections where huge rock cairns mark some alternative way to today’s road.

Rock cairns paralelling the road

The terrain is somewhere in-between highland and lowland, as it’d be expected at 300+ meter high: low vegetation with some sandy/gravelly areas and the occasional lava field in a mostly flat pattern. You can see as far as the clouds allow.

Once again the toughest aspect of the road walk is the disconnection between the two means of travelling. I feel like I’d be fine if I’d be on my own and I’d enjoy better the openness of the landscape. As it is, walking feels like a chore, just a means to get there. Slowly.

There’s the occasional shower but nothing like yesterday’s soaking. In fact, it’s great walking weather as long as I can find some wind shelter for taking a break. I do things like stopping for lunch, sit down and take my shoes off.

The featureless character of the land includes no water courses, visible or foreseen. I haven’t filled bottles since half-way through the previous day and I’ve started this morning with less than half a litre left but I’m oddly relaxed about it. I just don’t feel like drinking. I feel fine physically so I choose to trust my thirst, or lack thereof. The other strange phenomena going on is about my wearing waterproofs consistently and not getting sweaty. This is very welcome so I can avoid the put on/take off dance in the showery weather.

I don’t mean to become a waterproof garment commercial. Both things are surely related. It’s overcast, cold and breezy in a way that only Iceland can be. It keeps me cool while hiking and I’m just not perspiring, not thirsty either. I must say I welcome my new physiological mutant status, it’s so convenient.

I love the landscape and the lights even though the road is too much of a distraction.

I can love the landscape and the lights

I mostly concentrate on the walking. There’s a distant feature in those colourful, pointy hills and the road eventually bends to set a straight line towards them. I welcome that for a change.

As I get closer I see the steam coming off the ground, then the glow of a car park.

Thermal activity coming up

Eventually I get there: it’s the Hverir thermal area and it’s buzzing with visitors. I need a conscious decision to set the auto-walking off, take a break and have a look around. It’s once again a bit of a shock to be among so many people but I’m a world away from yesterday’s angst. As soon as I realize where I am, I truly enjoy the fumaroles, the boiling mud holes and the distinct smell of sulfur.

Hverir wonders

It’s up over a pass and I can already see Myvatn down below, both the lake and the Reykjahlid village site. I’m a tired but relaxed hiker as I enter town.

Myvatn is one of the few inland settlements in Iceland. There’s the geothermal industry activity and it’s also relatively low altitude (200+ m) that allows trees to grow. The birch woods are a welcome sight. Reykjahlid is the main town in the area at the northeast tip of the lake. I go straight to the campground and it’s at reception that I get the bad news:

Not what I wanted to hear

This is where my morale sinks to a new low. Northeasterlies are set to continue for it seems like ever. This is unusual in Iceland and very bad news for me while I’m still north of the divide.

I concentrate on my tasks: setting up camp in the golf-course-quality grass, going across the street to the supermarket for a full resupply that must take me 300+ km south, then repackaging everything. It’d have been a peaceful mini-break from the previous days’ stress but that weather forecast is looming large. I’m going into the highlands tomorrow.

A camp pic without my tent in it. Mildly busy campground in Myvatn