Day 38: Gislasaga Hike and Bildadur

We got to sleep in this morning since we stayed up late on our last night at Holt. Loading the bus at 10 am, we headed out and drove west. The plan for the afternoon was to go on a long hike in one fjord and learn more about the Gislasaga (from the same guy who gave us a short tour the other day).

A waterfall we visited on our drive to the trailhead.

A little after noon we pulled over at a rest stop on the side of the road and met our guide. We began hiking down a trail towards the fjord and scrambled over the moss. In Iceland certain areas are covered completely with moss. While it’s soft to walk on, it sometimes grows over holes so it’s very common to be walking along and have your foot sink six inches into the ground. Several people almost fell down along the way due to the moss covering the ground. As we were walking our guide would show us places were the saga’s hero, Gisli had hid when trying to escape his hunters. Basically, he had avenged his brother-in-law’s death, and then was being hunted by people hoping to avenge that murder (it all makes sense in the saga).

When we reached the bottom we sat near the water and ate our packed lunches. After our short break we began walking back up and had to cross some streams several times. At one point there was a little pool at the bottom of a waterfall so we decided that it would be fun to go swimming. Since we didn’t have swimsuits, some of us just jumped in in our underwear. The water was cold, but refreshing (not nearly as cold as last night). “Just pretend we’re in Hawaii” Caitlin said.

A little chilly.

It was deep enough to jump in.

Continuing on, we hiked up the trail and ate some blueberries along the way. Even though the plants don’t tend to get ripe until the end of July, several blueberry bushes were already bearing ripe fruit. They are all rather small, but taste pretty good.

About four and a half hours after we had begun our hike, we reached the road where our bus was parked. Upon refilling our water bottles from the nearby stream, we loaded the bus and headed towards Bildudalur, the town in which we were staying that night.

We arrived at Bildudalur around 6:30 pm and ate dinner at a little restaurant in town. I ordered Icelandic meat soup which turned out to be a lamb stew. It was really delicious, and after dinner I ordered a milkshake. Bildadur is so tiny that our hostel was only a one minute walk from the restaurant. I put my suitcase up in my room and then took a shower. My room had big windows with a nice view of the harbor. Before I went to bed I went on a short walk around town and we walked out to the water and peered into the town’s seamonster museum (unfortunately it was closed).