Day 13 - snow sleet hail and wind

 Last night it absolutely poured with rain/hail/sleet, hard to tell from inside the van, and it was really windy.  B had pitched her tent behind the van, braving the weather.  I got up to go to the loo at about 4am and stepped out of the van into water about 3 inches deep.  This giant puddle covered most of the parking area and the ground was really slippery with ice.  Even though she had pitched the tent on slightly higher ground, the tent became a waterbed and got completely soaked.  Thanks to a ground sheet, her sleeping bag stayed dry, but she bailed just after 6am.  This was taken much later, when most of the water had drained away.




We made breakfast and coffee in the van and set off for the day, leaving behind the silly campground that didn’t open the kitchen and showers until 8am.  Why would you do that?

The camp ground was really full of campers, it's the busiest place we've been to so far.

We backtracked a bit and went to Dyrholaey, which as a nice view of the sea stacks in one direction and black sand beaches in the other direction, plus a Lighthouse. 


 

It was REALLY windy and super cold, snowing/sleeting and generally unpleasant.  We spent about an hour here and then headed in search of the yoda cave.  It was mercifully quiet here, not many tourists and sheltered from the freezing wind, though it did snow while we were there.  




Onwards to Fjadrargljufur Canyon, which required about an hours walk from the carpark.  It was still blowing like mad and snowing, but we soldiered on and it was worth the effort, a really neat canyon covered in green moss.  



It eventually stopped snowing and only the howling wind remained.  Bus loads of tourists are still in evidence, hogging all the prime photo spots and spending ages taking selfies.

From here we decided to backtrack a little bit to Eldhraun, which is an old lava flow that now has bright green moss (called woolly fringe moss) growing on it.  You drive past/through this on the main road, and it looks totally amazing.




We’ve camped up for the night at Kirkjubaejarklaustur – no clue how to pronounce it.  This place has a kitchen and shower block that seems to be open normal hours, but when I went to actually have a shower, found that I require 6 x 50KR coins to operate it, which will give me a 3 minute shower.  Sigh.

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