We had quite an adventurous morning this morning, and by adventurous, I mean a pretty annoying morning because of our battery issues. We woke up at our campsite in the Westman Islands and warmed up some leftovers for breakfast in the commons area. Afterward, we discovered that our campervan wouldn’t start because the battery was completely dead again. Luckily we asked the lady who runs the campsite, and she was able to call a friend over to come to help jumpstart our van. Thank god. Not wanting to risk any further issues and being stuck on the island, we hopped on the next available ferry out of town.
Once back on the mainland, I was able to get a hold of the camper van rental office, and they finally arranged for me to bring the van to a shop for a replacement battery.
With the battery replaced, we could continue with our trip. I constantly checked the live webcam/eruption tracking website for Fagradalsfjall for the past few days since the volcano itself erupts once every few days. Luckily, it appeared to be much more active than the last time we visited, so that’s where we headed!
We did the one-hour hike again, and even though it was a little cloudy, we could see the magnificent eruption.
Mesmerized, I think we spent a good 2-3hrs watching the eruption. When we got back to the van, we had to take our covid tests since we were flying back home in two days. I highly recommend these test kits by Abbot if you are ever traveling internationally and need to test before returning to the USA. They were so convenient, and all you need is an internet connection so that you can connect with a person to verify your test results.
After our hike and eruption, we decided to head over to our campsite and check in. Our campsite for the day was the Reykjamörk Hveragerði Campsite, and it was one of our favorite campsites on this trip. We cooked some late lunch/early dinner in the communal kitchen and headed to the hot spring river nearby.
We parked our van at the trailhead parking lot and began our hike. Not realizing that it would take an hour and a half, we started questioning if this river was even worth it about halfway through. However, the views did get better and better, and the river itself was so worth the hike.
Once we arrived, we went along the river, looking for the best spot to soak in that wasn’t too crowded. The river does get pretty hot the further up you go, so it was a little warm. We ended up at a spot pretty close to the top since it was less crowded and stayed in that area for about an hour, and then we went further down once other people had left since it was getting late. We soaked in the river until the sunset, which was almost midnight!
We stayed until we were pretty much the last ones in the river. Fully warmed up and relaxed, we dried ourselves, put our clothes back on, and started our one-hour hike back down the mountain. Then we drove 5 minutes back to our campsite and went to bed for the night.