Hellismannaleið trail: Rjupnavellir to Afangagil: Iceland tour Day 3

My first day walking across Iceland and its volcanic, and dusty, landscape.

I was ready for the 5:30 am alarm, having woke up at 2:30, then 3:30, then 4:30, it meant I had time to make myself a quick coffee while packing. I walked down to the bus station arriving with 25 minutes to spare, leaving plenty of time to eat a roll for breakfast that I purchased yesterday. The station's seating area soon filled with people dressed for hiking, with the restrictions of Covid 19 I thought there would be fewer people but the coach was completely filled with walkers all heading for Landmannalaugar. All except me. The driver made her resentment clear when I asked to be dropped off somewhat before at Rjupnavellir, I was forced to point out that her office had previously agreed that this was possible. She discussed the matter with her colleagues, one of whom moved my rucksack slightly in the luggage area.

I was sitting next to a 76 year old man from Slovenia, travelling with a group and planning, like most of the coach, to walk the world famous Langavegur trail (world famous in the long distance walking fraternity anyway). Only I was walking the Hellismannaleið trail as a prequel to the Langavegur. I told him I hoped I would still be trekking at his age.

Rjupnavellir is just a small collection of huts and the turn for it was right on the coach's route. Getting off, I waved back at all those watching on the bus, almost tripping myself up in the process, and was soon walking up a track beside a briskly flowing river. Unfortunately, I had the company of a cloud of flies and was being overheated by the sun (having prepared for rather colder conditions in Iceland). Fortunately a wind blew up and helped disperse the flies and cool me down. On crossing a bridge I moved from green grassland with some bushes to a starkly different landscape; hills of raw, white ash, loose and not yet domesticated by any vegetation. I assumed the products of an eruption by nearby Hekla, in the not very distant past. Small streams cut deeply into the loose volcanic tuff, forcing a steep descent on the loose material followed by an ascent up the other side of the small valleys. My trekking poles helped to gain purchase on the unstable slopes but my boots quickly filled with little stones until I put my gaiters on, not quite the muddy conditions I had brought them for but useful nevertheless. 

The first "sight" highlighted by my guide was a wide waterfall, where the falling water was split into sections by islands green with vegetation. "Fossabrekkur" was the name of the falls and on the other side from me a family was enjoying a picnic.

I left the river I had been following at a pool enclosed by basalt walls, where the water flowed out of fractures in the rock. After that the ash became black with occasional outcrops of solidified lava, and some areas with a little grass and small alpine type flowers of the type you might plant in a rockery in your garden. Apart from a gravel road I crossed, the only sign of human intervention were the remains of some old stone enclosures, maybe once for sheep, although there was little now for them to eat.

Afangagil was in a narrow grass covered valley. Fortunately the owner of this small group of huts was around and I was able to pay him for using his flat, grass covered campsite and for a hot shower. Despite the primitive nature of the site there were also flush toilets. The huts were being used by a horse riding group who said hello, their horses in a paddock higher up the valley.

Tuna, peanut butter and oat cakes for tea.

Fossabrekkur waterfalls, note the white ash on my side of the river

A lot of today's walk was across ash, black ash in the picture above, the post is a marker for the trail.