8-July 2007 to 9-July 2007: ...we started to empty out the car and prepare for our trip home. As we were doing this, a familiar-looking Icelandic elderly man walked up to us and tried to engage in a conversation with us. Unfortunately, he didn't speak any english so communication was difficult at best even with my attempts at Icelandic. Julie and I thought he wanted to talk to us because he might have been the parking enforcement guy. After some futile attempts at communication beyond a sentence or two, I eventually asked if he could come into the Metropolitan Hotel with me so we could talk to the receptionist who obviously knew both Icelandic and English...

"This is BS!," I told Julie in unabbreviated terms. We knew this was the day we were to leave the Skógar area and head into Ţjórsárdalur Valley. So after 7 days of cloudiness and rain, we finally get a chance at rainbow weather for both Skógafoss and Seljalandsfoss on the morning that we're leaving. It figures.

And so we checked out of the Edda, got our free night (cursing that we didn't get the Edda Ísafjörđur to put a stamp on the first night so our free night we've occurred at the $200/night Egilsstađir Edda instead of the $100/night Skógar Edda), and headed closer to Reykjavík.

It was 7:15am as we left the blue skies and the sun around the south. However, the weather was partly cloudy as we went further west. Not far beyond the town Hella, we turned inland and up the east side of the Ţjórsá River - Iceland's longest river. After an unfruitful search for Buđafoss (because it was a fairly length unsealed detour to a private farm and the falls facing the wrong way), we took a pretty beat-up road through lavaflows towards the Ţjófafoss (the thieves waterfall) arriving at 9:15am. This waterfall was wide and powerful, but the mountain behind it (Burfell) was what made it interesting.

As we continued our tour of Ţjórsárdalur at 9:30am, we were following the desert road when we noticed a whole herd of Icelandic horses running alongside the Ţjórsá River. There were ranchers also on horseback in front and behind the long line of horses. I could've sworn this scene reminded me of something out of a beer commercial (I forget whether it's Budweiser or Coors). Our map also said Trollkönufoss (Troll Woman Waterfall) was around here too so that was my excuse to pull over and get out of the car for a bit. But when I went out to see the falls, it was flowing downstream and from my vantage point, there was no view. I suppose I could've hopped the cattle fences with the ranchers still there to get a better view, but I figured it wasn't worth it.

We rejoined the Route 26 and headed for Háifoss at around 9:50am. We had a choice to do this one later, but we guessed that the sun was probably in a good spot so why not try for it now? The road was a bit rough with fairly big rocks strewn about but by the time we got to the car park, we saw a 2wd there so we knew it was certainly doable by passenger cars if they took it slow.

It was a little after 10:30am as the sun was shining brightly this morning. We hastily headed down the path towards the view of Háifoss. The midges at first were swarming, but they seemed to have left us alone the further along the trail we went. Within a few minutes, I exclaimed a big "OOOHHH!" to Julie as I was busily snapping photos. You see, Háifoss had a nice bright rainbow in its mist and so our guess worked out. Háifoss (Iceland's 2nd tallest waterfall) also had a pretty significant companion waterfall (called Granni - "the neighbor"). Plus, if you looked down the gorge, you could see more of those technicolor hills that I dubbed the Landmannalaugur Hills since the tourist literature tends to associate them with the popular backcountry destination.

We were glad we seized the moment and did this waterfall instead of putting it off until later in the day. What a scene! Sometimes seizing the moment is more effective than putting it off, I reckon, and this kind of proved that point (along with our poor lighting conditions at Gufufoss back in the East Iceland fjord of Seyđisfjörđur). We took our time taking photographs of ourselves at the overlook as well as trying to photograph the gorge and waterfalls every which way we could imagine.

After spending nearly an hour at the falls, we continued our waterfall hunt by going down the rough road towards Gjáin. It was merely a little rift area full of fragrant flowers, midges, some interesting alcoves, and a pair of attractive waterfalls. We stopped by an area where we could access one of the waterfalls, but the other required going across the river from here. While trying to figure out how to get to the other waterfall (the one I've seen on the internet), I reckoned we had to get there from the historical farm Stöng, which I knew was nearby. Still, the scenery at Gjáin was quite nice.

We next drove the even rougher road connecting Gjáin and Stöng. We arrove at Stöng at 12:45pm. Stöng is an excavated farm victimized by the 1104 Mt Hekla eruption. That volcano is still active, by the way. They restored the building so you couldn't really tell it was in ruins. Considering the rather warm day and a scattering of annoying midges, Julie wasn't interested in walking back towards Gjáin so we couldn't get close to that other waterfall.

At 1:15pm, we headed back to the Route 26 and not far from the Stöng turnoff, there was the turnoff for Hjalparfoss (the helping falls). This one was easy to see as a side road led to a car park where you could already see the joining pair of waterfalls. They weren't tall, but they were picturesque. There were basalt columns nearby and the colorful volcanic slope off to our left seemed to suggest that this area was a crater in which waterfall fell right into before it eventually eroded away an opening so you're left with the falls and pool and not an enclosed crater "lake."

With all this waterfalling going on in the day, both of us were getting hungry and decided it was now time to check in to the Hrauneyjar Highland Center. We expected to have a lunch there.

When we arrived, it was about 2:45pm. Upon putting our stuff away in our room, a few things became immediately apparent. First of all, I think this place was probably the dumpiest place we stayed at on this trip. The rooms were very small, but at least we were paying a fair price considering it was in the South - unlike the Metropolitan in Reykjavík, or any other place in that city I reckon. Still, this shared facility didn't have its own sink in the room so I guess we'll have to be sharing bathrooms when it comes time to brush teeth - like the good 'ol camping experience. Upon inspecting the bathroom, it was pretty disgusting.

After having a lunch of hamburgers and fries, we decided to head to Landmannalaugur so we could check out the place on our own time. It was only 35km away and the Dynkur waterfall (the real reason why we went this far into Ţjórsárdalur) was going to be about 3 hours of slow driving. Still, we were going on the northern approach of the F208 to Landmannalaugur, but we knew 2wd vehicles made it there so it mustn't be that bad of a road.

So off we went at 3:45pm. The road was very washboardy and bumpy. The thunderstorm squalls seemed to envelope us and dump buckets of rain at a time. Meanwhile, the drive was actually quite a fascinating one through black sanded desert. I reckoned it was a taste of what the Sprengisandur Road F26 would've been like, but we weren't going to do it on this trip.

Eventually at just before 5pm, we got to Landmannalaugur, but the thunderstorms were brutal! It was pouring rain and the rivers were muddy. Julie and I decided not to linger here and head back to Hrauneyjar to relax. It turned out that this excursion was a wasted trip. After all, we didn't get to see the thermal pools we wanted to see on our paid tour but ran out of time.

Finally after 6pm, we were back at the Hrauneyjar Highland Center. Dinner was this overpriced buffer of what seemed like Costco Salmon and some pork and potatoes dish. For what turned out to be $80 for the both of us, I wasn't sure if we could've ordered hamburgers and fries again, but I sure wish I did.

After the dinner, it was time to unwind and prepare ourselves for our last waterfall hunt tomorrow. But first, we had to get ourselves to endure this one last night in what amounted to a trailer park-type experience...

I recalled that yesterday, the lovely lady with the tattoo on her neck at the Hrauneyjar Highland Center mentioned to us that we could make it to the waterfall if we took our time. We knew it was a 4wd road to get there, but we took her advice and went forward with strengthened resolve. It wasn't long before we left the Route 26 and then onto the 4wd track through the black terrains of the Icelandic interior.

At first, the road was pretty manageable with a few larger sharper rocks strewn about here and there but so far it wasn't anything that we hadn't seen on the way to Landmannalaugur from Hrauneyjar. We quickly learned to follow the white arrows, which were sparsely laid out at key junctions of the 4wd track. Along the way, we managed to get to the top of a small black-sanded hill and get nice views looking back down towards Hrauneyjar as well as Mt Hekla's summit.

However, there were a few ruts and even bigger rocks that started to show up and conspire to scrape the undercarriage of the SUV. Still, they weren't too much of a problem except they really tested my nerves and the fear of breaking down out here.

Eventually, we'd get to the last white arrow we'd see on the way to Dynkur. As we followed that path, it quickly degenerated into a real rough and rocky 4wd track. A couple of the ruts looked to be heavily affected by the thunderstorm from yesterday and showed some deep erosion. Upon looking at these mini-gullies, I was glad we didn't decide to do Dynkur yesterday afternoon in the thunderstorm. Even on the grassy part of the drive, the track lines were too deep for the SUV so I had to keep one tire on the grass straddling the middle with another tire on one of the side banks. I certainly didn't want to plant a tire in the deep grove as that could easily cause us to scrape the ground and even get stuck!

I was beginning to doubt whether we'd make it out going back this way. Eventually, the track got to a pair of huge boulders seemingly strategically positioned to block the 4wd path. Have we made it to the end already? Even as I tried to ponder the answer to this question, we saw there was the continuation of the 4wd path which was far more tame than what we had just taken. It made me wonder whether the road we just took past the arrow was incorrect. Still, the arrow led us here. What else could we have followed?

And so we followed the remainder of the 4wd track until it got to a noticeable place to stop as the line of boulders near something that resembled a tiny car park would suggest. And from there, we could see the mighty Dynkur waterfall in the distance. It was a nice but partially blocked view thanks to the canyon before us. I guess we could've explored a bit to see if there were any walking trails that allowed us to get closer to the falls. However, the swarming midges ensured that we wouldn't be outside the car for too long.

And so we headed back. Along the way out, we noticed another waterfall on a separate drainage on the other side of the Ţjórsá River.

But before we could claim victory on bagging this remote waterfall, the road threw one last curveball at us. As we drove, we clearly missed the way we took on the way in thanks to those boulders that were strategically positioned so we wouldn't go back up the way we came. I guess they wanted us to go the other way out to keep the road one-way perhaps? Anyways, the road at first was very tame, but then it put us into a field of very large boulders. This was even worse than the deep ruts and gullies on the way in. Now, we had to dodge rocks too big to run over while trying not to kill the underside of the car when we didn't have a choice where to go. We knew which way was forward since there were sticks up ahead that we knew we had to get to.

So after some anxious moments of driving no more than 10km/h, we finally got to the other side and eventually got back to one of the white arrows. Ah, that was better. However, before we could get back on the road home, we missed a turn and it wasn't until the GPS tracking suggested that we took a different path than the one in. So after that 20-minute out-and-back detour, we finally were on the way back.

It wasn't until about 10:30am that we finally made it back to the Route 26, which was paved. By this time, we figured that with the warm sunny weather, why not take one last shot at Gullfoss thinking that just maybe we might see rainbows again. And so we drove the next hour going all the way towards the connecting road Route 31 which then took us over to the 35 and by then we were back on our way to the familiar Gullfoss. By 11:30am, we were back at the falls, which was much more crowded than it was when we were last there nearly three weeks ago.

Anyways, as we had feared, we were too early for the rainbows. Had we waited two or three more hours, then the sun would be behind us and we would've gotten the photographs we wanted. But we weren't going to wait around that long as we intended to get back to Reykjavík in time for our reserved dinner as well as a lunch at Sćgreifinn. Oh well.

In any case, we still salvaged something out of the excursion and got close to the waterfall again. Now that it was sunnier, we got better views into the turbulent gorge below the lower waterfall as it was wafting up mist. Somehow under these conditions it seemed more picturesque than our earlier excursion when it was gloomy and overcast.

And so by 12:30pm, we headed back to Reykjavík - finally taking the first steps back home. As stated earlier, both Julie and I had a craving for Saegreifinn's Lobster - errr Langoustine - Soup. By about 2:30pm, we arrived at the Metropolitan Hotel in Reykjavík and checked in. We saw the same nice female Icelandic receptionist who greeted us the morning we left Reykjavík. She recognized us and we engaged in some small talk while I was trying to test my knowledge of the Icelandic language. It seemed like quite a while since I last had the opportunity to try...

I guess checking in early was good because she gave us a corner room which was a bit roomier than last time. Not long thereafter, Julie and I finally got our long-awaited lunch. Yum!

Next, we started to empty out the car and prepare for our trip home. As we were doing this, a familiar-looking Icelandic elderly man walked up to us and tried to engage in a conversation with us. Unfortunately, he didn't speak any english so communication was difficult at best even with my attempts at Icelandic. Julie and I thought he wanted to talk to us because he might have been the parking enforcement guy. After some futile attempts at communication beyond a sentence or two, I eventually asked if he could come into the Metropolitan Hotel with me so we could talk to the receptionist who obviously knew both Icelandic and English.

When we both walked in, a different receptionist was there and she was giving us this surprised "What is this?!" kind of look. Eventually, I told the lady I didn't know what he was trying to say, and she'd finally told us, "Oh he just wanted some small talk."

"OOHHH!" said I.

And with that, the old man stuck out his hand and said, "Blessađur!"

I shook his hand and also said, "Blessađur."

Shortly thereafter, we finished packing and put our stuff in the room to get everything sorted out. Then upon the previous receptionist's advice, we went to a nearby bookstore in town to pick up an Icelandic dictionary (orđabók). Boy was it expensive at around $40 USD or 2400 Ikr for a pocket-sized book (yeah I expected it, but somehow it never ceases to amaze me).

We celebrated our final evening in Iceland with a dinner at the very upscale and expensive Sjávarkjallarinn (literally the "seafood cellar") Restaurant. We actually made the booking for this restaurant three weeks ago since they were fully booked back then. So obviously they're quite busy and popular.

The atmospheric dark, blue-lit restaurant served up very delicious appetizers. I forgot exactly what we got but I do know that we did get an appetizer they were famous for. The mains were a little on the disappointing side, but perhaps that was because our expectations were set so high.