Near the start of the Laugavegur

The Laugavegur is the name for the first 4 days of our trek, from Landmannalaugar to Porsmork. It was the first official trekking route opened in Iceland in around 1964.

The mini bus ride there was an adventure in itself. I have never been in a minibus when fording rivers. Interesting. As Houblon mentioned, the ground at the campsite is very stony - cue bent tent pegs all round.

Once all the tents were up, we went for a walk to the summit of Blahnukur - about 400m steep climb from the campsite. We were very lucky to have a beautiful sunny day. The views were amazing - check out Houblon's blip. Unfortunately my camera was on a weird setting, which I failed to notice, and photoshop can't put the pictures back together, which is why I didn't blip from the summit. The descent was very slippery (scree) - everybody ended up on their backsides at least once (apart from our guide, obviously). We could see our route for the next day, through an old lava field, past some fumaroles, and on into rounded hills in the distance.

We had a dip in the hot spring after the walk. The water is just deep enough for your head to stick out, if you sit down. The pebbles you're sitting on are pretty hot, as is the water (think very warm bath, unless you get too close to the source). This was all great until you get out to leg it back to camp in your swimsuit - the warmth of the water was soon replaced by the chill of the breeze on exposed, wet flesh. Nice....

As I'm back blipping this, I can also tell you that my swimsuit didn't dry overnight and it was never dry enough for the rest of the trip for it to dry, so it came home wet. It's all clean and dry now, don't worry...