Happiness = Soaked Clothes, Aching Muscles and Wading in Icecold Water

On Friday we had the most fun we've had in a long time. We went to an excursion to Þórsmörk, literally "Thor’s Woodland". It's a valley between three glaciers called Mýrdalsjökull, Eyjafjallajökull and Tindfjallajökull. The surrounding glaciers create a special climate and low birch trees cover the hills and valleys.

The excursion wasn't really what we expected from the brochure and so we didn't quite have the right gear but the trip was really way better than we could ever have hoped for. Our guide Oli was simply terrific.

On our way to Þórsmörk we had to cross several glacial melt-off rivers. Here's a video of us crossing one on our way back. Of course the bus is no ordinary minibus. You can see the glacier Eyjafjallajökull in the background. We were told that the rivers may change quite quickly from small creeks to wide torrents and sometimes the water reaches the windows of the bus and sometimes one can't cross at all.



During the trip we saw three big waterfalls, the boarder of one glacier, endless mountains and valleys in beautiful autumn colours, numerous rivers and creeks and thousands of rocks in all shapes and sizes and above it all rainbows rising from the valley.

To see one of the waterfalls the name of which I've forgotten (close by the famous waterfall Seljalandsfoss) we had to climb up a bit and on the way up our guide informed us that two people die there every year and that we had to be very careful and hold the chain. But we got to see the waterfall quite close up by climbing up a makeshift ladder and leaning over a cliff. Afterwards we figured that probably somebody had died there once but hardly two people a year, otherwise they wouldn't take us there, would they?

We got quite close to the glacier Eyjafjallajökull. It was really windy there and when we climbed up a sandhill it was hard to stand up and we got sand in our eyes and in our shoes and when we got back home I realized that my hair was full of sand even though I had the hoods of my hoodie and my jacket both tightly tied all the time. Our guide showed us where the boarder of the glacier had been just a few years previously and it was a terribly long way to the current boarder from there.

We also went to see a waterfall inside the Stakkholtsgjá gorge. We walked there and on the way we had to cross several small creeks from the waterfall. The first we managed by stepping on stones and lucky or unlucky jumps but the next was so wide that after running up and down the stream and wading repeatedly over and back again in his rubber boots our guide announced that there was only one way to do it: "You have to take off your shoes and socks and wade". And of course we did. The water was ice cold (well, it's coming from the glacier) and the sharp stones hurt quite a lot on our freezing feet but we got to the other side. We crossed three streams like this I think.

The waterfall cascaded inside a narrow and deep gorge into which we climbed and everybody decided that it was totally worth the difficult hike and soaked feet. On our way back our guide decided to take another route that meant crossing a wider part of the river and he carried us all seven over.

In Þórsmörk we climbed up a hill and had an amazing view across the valley and the mountains and the rivers and the yellow and orange of the autumn leaves and the brown and red of the birch trunks and branches.

On our way back we saw an arctic fox running up a hill and then disappearing behind it. It was quite small and the guide said that although it's quite rare, this is the time to see them since the small ones start running around by themselves and they don't quite know where to go yet.

I promise that there'll be a photo account of everything in time (although I didn't get a photo of the fox) but it'll take a while since I took 745 pictures in all during the day.