Fluðir region
Waking up on our 3rd day we suffered the main disappointment of our trip: unfortunately, we would not be able to return to Landmannalaugar where we had planned to spend the day hiking to Blanhukur and going to Eldgja, as the weather forecast was awful. After thinking about it, we decided to not to risk driving all the way there to end up in front of a wall of rain with no hiking possible.
We were therefore improvising a short tour of the region where the rain would be more manageable. So we headed to Geysir around 9:00AM to take some photos of the geyser. I had read that access to Geysir was now charged, but this was clearly not the case. We took a short tour of the site to take some photos and continued the road to Thingvellir where the weather seemed better.
We walked around the park for an hour and made our way to the superb Öxarárfoss waterfall that we had only been able to observe in winter until then. This waterfall is gorgeous and particularly photogenic.
With the rain coming again, we decided to head down to Selfoss to do some shopping and eat with a roof over our heads. After a good Viking beer and a traditional Icelandic soup (made with delicious mutton), we decided on the advice of the server at the restaurant to go a little further south because the weather was obviously better there and there was a beautiful waterfall to see.
This turned out to be great advice and we arrived at Urridafoss in the early afternoon. The waterfall was indeed picturesque very pretty and nearby we could spot many fishermen as these waters were very famous for their healthy population of fish. This was the famous Thjórsá river, the longest in Iceland, which had an impressive flow of 350 cubic meters per second there. It must be said that it was the product of several glaciers including Hofsjökull, Vatnajökull, and Tungnafellsjökull in particular.
We went back to our guesthouse and on the way we stopped at Fludir where we planned to swim in the small hotpot in Hrunalaug. To reach it, you had to follow the direction of Hruni from Fludir (5 min) and from the church in Hruni take the direction of Solheimar, where a sign will point you to the spring. Access was now chargeable (1000 ISK), and one person “regulated” the traffic so that there were not too many people in this tiny basin. Unfortunately for us, there were already people inside at the moment.
So we made the decision to return to Fludir at the Secret Lagoon to swim. Admission was 2,800 ISK. I loved the place, we've already been there in winter and it's much less crowded than the Blue Lagoon, obviously.
We stayed no less than 2 hours in the pool, happy to have been able to reorganize our day after our morning disappointment. But that's Iceland for you! One has to make do with the weather and adjust the itinerary. The region is also very rich in tourist sites, so there was a lot to choose from. Typically, we could have done Gullfoss and Haifoss for example, but we had already been there several times.
