Our last full day in Iceland was always going to be memorable, but when we woke up this morning, we had no idea just how memorable! The plan for today was to hire a car, visit some of the local area we missed in the last couple of days, and finish up at the blue lagoon. So we got off to a good start, got up early, booked the hire car and had breakfast. We then headed out into the night/morning in the hope that the miserable weather would fade away before sunrise.
We were picked up from our hotel by the hire company and taken to their offices where the paperwork was sorted and we were handed the keys. After picking up some food for the day we drove around Reykjavik for a while trying to work out the road systems. With that (kinda) sorted we got on with our day. First stop was Perlan, a set of hot water storage tanks and viewpoint on the Öskjuhlíð hill. Although the weather was actually taking a turn for the worse, the views were still spectacular. This is also where we saw one of the biggest advantages of natural geothermal energy. The underfloor heating is so cheap, the balcony around the outside of the Perlan had it!!
We then decided to just take the scenic route around the Blue Mountains to the Blue Lagoon. The weather was not on our side one bit. Most of the mountains were hidden by the mist and clouds, but we pressed on ever optimistic. The route was planned using the recommended road map for the country, but what the guys in the hire place failed to mention was that different road surfaces are not marked and once you are out of the main centres of Iceland, the road construction turns slightly less sturdy! We soon found ourselves on a main road (we guessed it was a main road by the width of it, but could have been wrong) that was simply constructed out of compacted gravel. The best thing about this was that the amount of gravel used meant that the drops off the side of the road were quite sever, ranging from about 50cm to about 3m, but they had obviously perfected this method as the road seemed fairly sturdy, despite the rapid pinging of the gravel as it hit the car.
The adventure had definitely begun! As the weather got worse, so did the road. We continued on and made a couple of wrong turn on the way. Well when I say wrong turns, we used the map and apparently some of the roads marked on it are not so much roads as fields so we didn’t notice them. Despite the worsening conditions, we were in fact having a great time! We stopped in a small coastal village for a walk on the volcanic beach, another interesting experience. We were glad we picked up lunch in Reykjavik though as this place was deserted, just like everywhere else we had been through today. The afternoon saw us continuing along the coastal ‘road’ admiring the alien-like landscapes that surrounded us until eventually we came across civilisation and the Blue Lagoon!
The Blue Lagoon is a geothermal spa in South Western Iceland. The place was absolutely beautiful. The water temperature’s varied across the lagoon starting at about 38°C and significantly hotter right next to the geothermal feed (oddly enough). It was an amazingly relaxing place and we could have stayed there until our flight the next day if it hadn’t been for the fact they close over night. We relaxed in the deep blue waters long into the evening before heading indoors for a quick Reindeer burger.
It was at this point that we made our next mistake. We decided to take the scenic route over the Blue Mountains eventually ending up on the road we drove along as part of the Northern Lights tour. Everything was going well, we negotiated the interesting section of road still under construction again without incident and found the turning to the mountain road. This was where we made our second mistake. The road looked a little rough at the junction, but we just assumed that because it was shown on the road map as a main road it would be fine. Well it did get a little better, before it got a lot worse. In the end we had to abandon this idea, so Rosie and I directed as Mark managed to pull of a 15 point turn in 6inches of mud without denting the car, or driving off the cliff. It was a bit of a mission though!
Once we were back on the main(ish) road we thought that would be the end of it and we could just head on back to the hotel. No such luck! We stopped on route to take a photo and when we pulled away again, a horrible grinding noise began. To cut a long story short, we had a stone lodged in the brakes, so sat on the hard shoulder of, what it seems was, the only busy motorway/main road in Iceland we had to take the wheel off and dig out the stone. This was not the best situation to be in the night before we were due to leave Iceland whilst in a rental car 20 miles from the nearest town, but thanks to Mark, we got it all sorted and we were back on the road in no time.
We got back to the hotel and packed up ready for our early departure in the morning. We then drove the hire car to the airport, handed it back in and headed home after a wonderful couple of days.