2015-09-05 Day 03 Keflavik

The Geysir Guesthouse in which we spent our first night is quite pleasant, especially for a guesthouse for 20 people, as it appears tht we are the only people there!

We let ouselves in with a key retrieved from a locksafe outside, for which we have been provided a code, and settled in for the night.

Despite it being after midnight the streets seem alive with people seemingly having a great time. Eventually about 2am they seem to disappear and all is finally quiet.

We decide to go for an early morning walk before our car is due to be delivered at 10am. It appears that there is a lot of gear around being set up for what looks like a concert ... or perhaps being dismantled afer a concert ... maybe that's why there were so many people around last night. Along the way we find an early opening cafe, it appears that on weekends things only open after 10am.

By 10:15 we are begining to wonder about our car so I check the reservation details and yes it's due here at 10am today. Then I discover a carelessly worded addendum to our arrangements in which I attempted to explain that as we were getting in after midnight the car would be "collected" in the morning. Oops ...

We decide to get a taxi back to the airport car depot and then come back and collect our things. Just as we are leaving we run into a rep. from the car hire company looking for another missing customer. He is just about to give up and offers us a lift to the depot. Fantastic. That saves another $40 taxi fare.

The hire agreement is quickly completed, along with the "scare you into it" additional sand, gravel, ash etc.. insurances that add another $450 to the bill. The car is proudly presented to us outside the front door and promptly decides it never wants to run again! The battery is changed and there is much discussion with heads under the bonnet but it’s going to have to be towed away. “Never mind sir we will get another one.” We are informed and sure enough 30 minutes later another Jeep Grand Cherokee is delivered to the door. More paperwork and we are finally on our way.

When we arrive back in town it is to discover that the streets are completely blocked off due to the festival that is being prepared for. No amount of discussion with the official manning the barricade can convince him to let us through to collect our bags. “Come back this afternoon or find another way.” Is his unhelpful response. So we find another way by going through someone’s back yard, there is a gate, collect our cases and drag them back to the car.

Finally we are actually on our way. We decide to loop around the peninsula to the west and then back toward Grindavik. The weather is unfortunately a flat featureless grey drizzle and is forecast to stay that way for the next week so photographic opportunities are few and far between.

On the way we pass quite a nice old church near Gardur

and some interesting little geysers near thermal power station. I guess it must have grown over some time because the original viewing platform is now way tooo close!

The last interesting feature for the day is called the “Bridge between Continents” where the European and Pacific tectonic plates actually meet and are slowly drifting apart.

We finally check into the only available guesthouse in Grindavik at an unexpectedly pricey $140 but it is a pleasant enough place, and the owner affords us our last surprise for the day us by telling us she lived in Fremantle for a year sometime back!