Reykir - Can this be real?

17 June 2017

Wherever you go in Iceland you are in a film set with lighting technicians who've read too much Tolkien, or fancy themselves as Romantic poets.

 Without realising it in time to change it, I'd set myself the daunting task of driving 250k this morning, at least half of which was gravel roads, and to make it worse, every time I drove round a bend those damn stage hands  had set up yet another fantastic backdrop which had to be photographed.  Of course it's all an illusion. Nothing in nature could be this picturesque surely?

After many stops I finally got to my destination. The sun was shining but the rain machine was still at work artfully drifting showers across the sea.

The last few days have been difficult so I'm going back to one of the best places I visited on my trek round the north - Reykir, or Grettislaug. The first name refers to the small collection of buildings clustered on a promontory at the end of a 10k dirt road. The second, Grettir's pool, is where, some 1100  years ago, the saga hero Grettir landed after swimming naked across 10 kilometers or so of freezing sea. Fortunately for him there was a hot spring just at that point, and it's still there, still providing water at a constant 40 degrees. It's been tidied up a little. There is an arrangement of driftwood logs which provides some cover for changing and there are handrails to help you in. Otherwise little has changed. Grettir would have recognised the two little turf houses - the basic design stayed the same until the late 19th C.  

What he would have made of the view, let alone the girls in bikinis, I don't know. Perhaps saga heroes were  blasé about such things. If you've spent most of  your summers on Viking raids round Europe and North America you've probably been there and got the tunic.

Here is the modern saga hero, who wouldn't dream of even sticking his toe into the sea, but bravely endures the heat for the camera:

22:45

It seems to be a special holiday today and I was a bit worried that it might be crowded, but not at all. As usual on the Iceland tourist circle a lot of campers don't turn up until late in the evening. A  huge expedition truck turned up an hour ago, full of middle aged people from I think the Czech Republic. They set up identical tents in a row in a well drilled routine. I saw the same group in Reykjavik.

Here are a few more pictures of the surroundings: