I got up far too early, because I was awake, and went back up the road to Geysir. I’d failed last night to get there after the tourists so let’s try to get there before them. For the record, they really start to appear around 7.30am. I got some pictures of Strokkur without a ring of people, at least.

Breakfast wasn’t really breakfast – a piece of Toblerone to keep me going at Geysir and the remains of the star crisps when I got back, just while I waited until it was allowed to drive around.

I drove the ~2km up a gravel track to Hauladalur’s church and then strolled down to Kualaug, the little roadside hot (warm) pool. Only 2km from a few hundred tourists who had no idea this was here, sitting in the warm water, listening to the birds – the only peaceful private pool I’m likely to find in the next two weeks.
My plan to drive to Laugarvatn to get some proper breakfast was delayed by a detour up a rougher gravel road to Bruarfoss, which is quite a spectacular waterfall. Somehow a canyon has opened up in the middle of the river, which now pours down into it from both sides. The canyon continues once the water has fallen – a split level canyon! The water in the lower canyon is a spectacular bright turquoise. Tourists, meanwhile, have interpreted the multiple multilingual “DANGER! DO NOT GET TOO CLOSE TO THE WATERFALL!” signs as “please feel free to paddle in the shallows”.

I got cereal and a baguette at Laugarvatn and ate half of it as a late lunch before heading to my 1pm booking at Hvammsvík. It’s lovely on a quiet winter morning and it’s nice now but I definitely prefer it when there aren’t 20 people in every single pool. On the other hand, they don’t bring out the paddle boards in winter. Because the water was so calm, I was allowed to paddle all the way out to the little island – nervously, though, because there were a lot of jellyfish.
When I’d had enough of Hvammsvík and eaten the rest of the baguette, I drove to Husafell, which meant two rough gravel roads over the mountain and then much confusion at Husafell – it’s a kind of country estate, Icelandic-style, which means the hotel runs everything, including the campsite.