We awoke and dressed to have breakfast at 8am, before going on the bus at 9am (the designated start time Mick suggested as Mírmir didn't think he had to tell us a start time!) for a drive to the lava fields at Landmannalaugar. Mick also awoke with excrutiating neck, shoulder and neck pain. It seemed having pain free feet was too good to be true.
Breakfast was the standard fair of toast, cereal and fruit. The entire tour bus was there, all sitting separately from each other, and it was clear that the majority were a particularly selfish kind of traveller. The Chinese particularly engendered this as they went through the buffet taking as much as they could, not leaving any milk for the rest of the group, and hogging the toaster, the operation of which seemed to be a complete mystery to them. The 2 Japanese ladies, one of which was about 50, the other pushing 80, asked Mick where we were from. Mick replied that we were from Australia, but she didn't comprehend and thought we came from Estonia, until Damian tried to correct the mistake. Eventually they understood us, and they even sat next to us at breakfast, silently eating. This was one of the warmest interactions we were to have with any of the tour group for the entirety of our time together. It was clear from the Australia/Estonia mix up that we were not going to be having many conversations with these two. We also had a very short chat with the English couple, where all we learnt was that they live close to Heathrow airport; not even their names!
We made sure that we got to the bus early to ensure we didn't get back seats again. The Chinese Fab Five (which includes the Gaysians and another family of 3) either couldn't understand English, or they couldn't give a fuck about their fellow passengers and reserved the same seats as the day before. We took the seats that the English couple had sat in, relegating them to the back seats, where they stayed for the rest of the trip. They also didn't speak to us for another 3 days....
Our first stop was to a recreated Viking house and chapel. The recreation was based off ruins found close at stöng. We also stopped to take photos of our first of many waterfalls of this trip.
The ride to Landmannalaugar for our lava field hike was very bumpy. We were driving over lava rocks in make shift roads/tracks and going through small streams. The roads are restricted to 4 wheel drives given the terrain. The bumpy and jarring ride was quite long, exactly what Mick didn't need for his sore neck and body
We had 3 hours to complete our hike and have a swim in a natural hot spring. Mímir's instructions for the different hikes available were not particularly clear. We had to go ask him for instructions a second time. The Fab Five should have done this as well, as they got lost, were late to the bus, and we had to help Mímir to find them. They ended up making us over 45 mins late. During the hike we saw some amazing scenery. The Rainbow Mountain consists of red, orange and green and blue colours. There was also a Blue Mountain, described as having hues of blue and green - but it just looked grey to us. Mick went into the natural spring and was disappointed on two fronts. Firstly, given that the warm parts were taken by other tourists, Mick was simply sitting in a cold pond. Secondly, and most disappointingly was that the other tourists were all from the same tour group, and they were young and talking to each other (in English) - Mick was well jealous!
On the way home, our bus started beeping, which Mímir choose to ignore. The bus then decided it had given enough warning, and would not let Mímir accelerate. There were moments where we thought we'd be spending the night on the lava fields in the cramped bus. Mímir called someone, spoke in Icelandic, played with the gear stick and we were off again. Once we got onto a proper road, the beeping (and non-acceleration) started again once we picked up speed. Mímir called his life-line again, and we were back on the road - but he couldn't stop the beeping, so for 90 minutes we heard a constant beep. It turns out that the only way to get the bus moving was to be in 4 wheel drive mode; going 90km per hour in 4 wheel drive mode was causing the beeping.
After getting back to Hella, we decided too check out the local pool/geothermal hot tubs to relax our rattled bodies.
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