Happy Campers picked us up in front of the MicroSuites at 9:30am and took us to our Happy Camper 2 EX van. It had a little cooler running off of an RV battery, a one-burner propane stove, and storage drawers for cooking utensils, etc. The bed was tricky to fold down, but it was OK. There were yellow privacy curtains all around with tiebacks that we closed at night. An electric inverter helped us charge our stuff off of the RV battery. We got some free food in the Happy Camper office (unused stuff left by previous campers) and headed to the nearby Bonus market to get lunch and other food supplies.
Next, we drove to Grindavik and over a mountain ridge on the south coast to the volcano. There was a lot construction activity along the mountain ridge, probably related to building the barrier walls to protect Grindavik and the road from lava flows. We arrived at the parking lot for Trail C, less developed than a bigger parking lot a half-mile away.
Our hiking path was up a newly popular route up a ridge line to the Langihryggur peak. We got started at around 2pm. It was a serious hike with some loose gravel, and very dry, rough volcanic rock. It was easy to slip on the steep parts, given the packs with all the camera gear, but we took it slow with lots of stopping for pictures and rest and made it up in around 3 hours. Our hiking poles were very helpful. Lots of people were climbing and there was lots of comraderie. We stayed up there for a couple of hours and the hike back down took slightly less than 2 hours. We arrived back at the van at around 8pm (still broad daylight out). Several photos of the volcano hike are in one of the earlier posts below.
Campground in Grindavik
A well-equipped campground, with vans/campers/tents lined up in rows in a grass-covered parking lot. Good showers, busy dining-kitchen area where we could also plug in our laptop, WC and outside sinks for dishwashing. Tap water was great for drinking – true everywhere in Iceland.
Most all hot water in Iceland smells of sulphur. Away from the volcanic rift area, the hot water was less sulphury, but maybe we got used to it! This is due to Iceland using hot ground water for its hot water, no water heaters required at all (not really potable, though). The cold water is glacial melt and is totally fresh tasting and clean (no water treatment required).
And it was daylight until midnight, when the sun set, and it was bright twilight until it rose again around 3am.
This map shows the area of the volcano and the extent of the lava as of June 28. We parked at the lower left and climbed the trail to the right of the lava.
