Honeymoon in Iceland – Day 1: Trollafoss, Oxararfoss and Thingvellir

Long story short of our Iceland Honeymoon day 1 in South West Iceland: Reykjavik – landing, car rental and off we go to our first Icelandic fresh air “breeze” and waterfall: Trollafoss (meeting head-on the Nordic rain);  Thingvellir National Park – Oxararfoss waterfall and Laugarvatn.

Hello Iceland!

After a good night out around Helsinki’s city center but with only a few minutes of sleep in the airport we were enthusiastic about getting on board of the IcelandAir flight to Reykjavik. 8:50 AM – Up we go! We had a super nice flight in a landscape of fluffy white clouds beneath us and a perfect blue sky animated by the bright sun above. But we left behind all this dreamy weather at the moment we landed in Reykjavik, where the rain was happily welcoming us!  Oh well… we expected this, somehow!

Everything went smooth and nice; we took our luggage, we went for a short walk in the cosy Keflavik Airport and soon after, one of the happy guys form Happy Campers came to pick us up and help us get our happy car! Nice funny guy, he made a short presentation of the island, recommended some traditional dishes, supermarkets and made us laugh a lot!

We arrived at the happy base, we signed the papers, received the short training on how to use the little happy vehicle and in no time we were ready to rumble! We rented a Ford Connect: perfect for two persons: a nice little bed, freezer, heating system and everything that is useful for cooking by yourself – I will tell you more awesome stuff about the Happy Camper in another article but … for now, we’ll stick to this story.

Ok, so the car is ready, we are ready, now all we need is food and that is not far away from here! About one kilometer away from the Happy Camper office you can find lots of supermarkets where you can buy everything needed to get the party started. It was pouring rain outside and we noticed that our happy little camper was not so happy any more, as water was dripping from the car ceiling. Ooops! This is not good! We decided to go back and see what is there to be done about this, but at the happy base we had a surprise. The guys there took a look and concluded that there is nothing they can do in that instance; they would have to take the car to a repair shop and this could last for days.What they did is more than great and this is one of the reasons I highly recommend them for their professionalism and good intentions: as they did not have available another car, like the one we rented (it was the cheapest one!), they gave us, instead, a super big one: a Renault Traffic bus for the same price (this was one of the most expensive models they had for rent). So this is the story of how we managed to travel with the Big Yellow Awesome Happy Camper – that can accommodate up to 4 persons. Plenty of space and a super experience!

Our day on Google Maps

From Reykjavik we followed the Ring Road (Road 1) and then took Roads: 36, 365, 37 and 35. Don’t worry, you don’t really need a GPS or GPS skills as it is very easy to drive and get your bearings in Iceland – all roads and destinations are well marked so you just need to know what is your destination!

Trollafoss Waterfall

So we started again, this time for good. First destination: Trollafoss or Troll Waterfall. From Reykjavik we headed towards Road 1 and then 39. The rain was with us…all the way, but luckily, this time, only outside the car. It was raining when we arrived at the starting point of the short hike towards the first objective of the day, but we were well equipped with gear that had a 8000mm waterproof membrane, that should have, theoretically, kept us dry for a 15 to 30 minute hike. So, off we go!

I’ll tell you what happened next: reality has showed us the contrary! The weather was terrible, a drizzle combined with an awful wind that resulted in horizontal rain that managed to get through the membrane in less than 15 minutes. I never saw such rain in my whole life!!! It’s like, everything I used to know about this phenomenon, all my 28 years of experiencing different types of rain were absolutely blown away as this was the most unpredictable one I ever saw. Stubborn, we said there is no way we will turn around to the car without getting to the final destination…and it was totally worth it!

We were forced to use only the GoPro camera because of the hard rain, therefore the quality of the shots is not so great as it was a “mission impossible” to take photos considering the weather conditions. But feeling the wild Icelandic nature was amazing! The first thing I did when I stepped out of the car was to touch the moss on the ground – probably the most moisturized, fluffy and green specimen I have ever seen so far. We returned wet and happy to the car and headed towards the next check point: Thingvellir National Park.

Thingvellir National Park and Oxararfoss Waterfall

Note to self or better said, to you: in Iceland it’s very important to always follow the touristic markings you see on the road – most probably they will take you to a super great place! By doing this, we arrived at Thingvellir where wooden footbridges took us to a nice walk among lava cliffs and an amazing blue glacial waterfall called Oxararfoss.

But Thingvellir is most well known not for this nice waterfall, I mentioned above, but for another amazing thing that we can see here. Thingvellir area is part of the rift valley that marks the crest of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge – here is the spot where you are literally with one foot on the North Atlantic tectonic plate and with the other on the Eurasian one. And there is one more important cultural aspect: this was the founding place, in the year 930, of Alþingi – the first and oldest parliamentary institution in the whole world. I can understand why this is among the most visited places in Iceland.

I would like to emphasize another thing here and this is about Icelanders. These people have to be very special and deserve all our appreciation for the way they build the ideology around human beings and nature! First of all, they consider that every human being is allowed to access the beauty of nature and therefore, most, if not all of nature’s wonderful spots are guaranteed to be touristic accessible and free of charge. Because of the large number of tourists that visit the sights, they have also taken measures to protect nature. They built touristic paths and restricted the access outside them in order to prevent plant and animal loss. I believe this is the best way to do it! Beautiful people!

After some time spent here, in this historical crossing, the rain and night started to mingle around so we decided it’s time to leave and find the most desired two things of the day: a warm bath and some prolonged sleep.

For the first part we thought we had it clear! We headed to Laugarvatn the place where we would find Fontana – a thermal bath and spa in a super nice open air pool. We were daydreaming about the magic moment when we would enjoy the warm relaxing encounter with the thermal water from there. Unfortunately, all we were left with was that nice dream, because we arrived within 45 minutes of closing time, so, for at most an half an hour of bathing time that we would have gotten, we decided not to spend 45 € – the price for two tickets. Tired and hopeless we left searching for a place where we can crash over and sleep in our yellow Happy Camper.

Eventually, night came and we arrived somewhere in the Geysir area at Geysir Camping – on road 35. The camping was open but nobody was at the reception and you can imagine the showers were closed at that hour. What a day! But we decided to sleep there, in the parking, in front of the camping and at least wait until morning to take a shower. Not so bad after all! 🙂

So, conclusions after our first Icelandic day? Of course we were happy and excited to see more and experience everything that we can! All the things that happened during this first day in Iceland ended good, even the rain was a lot of fun to experience; the car story that after all turned out to be a lucky event for us and off course lets not forget about the nice places we already saw! Can’t wait for tomorrow!

Hope you found the information helpful and accurate, but remember, if you have any questions drop them in a comment below!

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