Its 6am and the sun is shining brightly. I decide to take my shower now whilst everyone else is still in bed. The bed has to be dismantled and bedding stowed before we can enjoy our breakfast.
Today we have elected to head up to the hills to Pingveiller National Park - home to the first Viking parliamentformed in 980ADand Oxararfoss, a gigantic waterfall.
We start at the waterfall and then walk along a gulley formed by the movement of tectonic plateswalking between two continent Ian has threatened to report more about this later?
Retracing our steps we make our way towards a tiny tin church passing the site of the Viking parliament and taking in the lovely views.
By the time we have done all this we are pretty tired but its hard to resist a walk out to Bruarfoss Waterfallit is on the way to our campsite. We locate the car park which is just at the side of the main road and set off on the walk which, according to the sadistic web blogger who wetted my appetite to see the falls, should take hours there and back and is labelled as ‘easy.
The start is not good as we are being attacked by swarms of fliesbut it will be worth it when we see those amazing azure waters? Apparently we will pass two smaller sets of falls on the way.
We set off along a path of lava gravel and walk for half an hour without sign of any form of waterfallbut I think I can hear them in the distance!
Now the path has turned to liquid mud with huge brown puddles everywhere which we must somehow cross or skirt around - Its pretty hard going.
Finally we arrive at the first set of falls and thankfully a more solid pathway. Ian tries to persuade me that these are the falls we to see but other walkers making the return journey tell us that this is just the first of the three.
We soldier on, arriving at the second set of falls after another 30 minutes. Again, Ian feels sure this the end and Id love to believe him as my back is killing me. Again we are toldyoure almost there! I really cant miss the main event after walking all this
Another 30 minutes and we are have arrived at the bridge. We are rewarded with a horseshoe shaped set of falls and turquoise blue water gushing down. Its a beautiful site, but OMG, what a walkand NOW we have to walk back! So thats a hour walk which was NOT easy!
The walk back is going well and we are making good time but on no, weve now reached that muddy section and its as hard as ever to dodge the puddles and avoid sinking in the brown sludge.
We are almost at the end but disaster strikesI miss my footing and slip. I am now sitting in the middle of a huge mud pool. I am literally covered in liquid mud and theres still half an hour of the return walk to cover.
Back at the car park my clothes are peeled off straight into bin bags and I do my best to wash off the mud at our tiny van sink. Fortunate that we have all our clothes inside so I can do a
The rain has decided to start again and its dumping in earnest. At least it held off for our sightseeing today. Other than the mud bath, we were just starting to enjoy our trip!
This evening we cannot be bothered to cook so we use the camp onsite restaurant. Our fish and chips arrives on bread boards. Cant believe the portion sizesone would definitely have fed both of us!
