The Iceland Traverse - Day 18. Final Day on Trail!
It was our last day on the traverse. It had gone so fast but it felt kind of empty. I have been chasing that feeling we got on the Great Divide in Canada and this just wasn't it. Was it the trail? More likely the fact we had to skip a section I guess. I could still feel it. Did we make the right decision? With the limited hiking time I get between work, it feels even more like a failure. Like it or not, I can't try again to achieve something like this until next year or maybe even the year after that. But I enjoy the hiking, and that's what its really all about. I have to remember that even if I forget it sometimes.
We woke early with the rain pattering against the tent. Had a quick breakfast and shoved the tent away knowing we didn't need to worry about drying it out for the next night as we were done, and in a hostel for the night. We started down the road. It was the ring road around the country so was about as busy as it gets in Iceland. Thankfully there was a gravel path running just a few metres from the road meaning we could hike on slightly softer ground and out of the traffic of the road.
We soon reached the turn off down towards the beach. We planned on hiking along the beach for as long as we could. There were a few unknown river crossings but we would just have to take them as it came. The turn off was long. A shuttle ran people from the sparce car park at the top, down to the beach at the bottom where a crashed DC3 plane was. We hiked the mile or so down to the beach, took a few photos of the plane and continued on away from the crowds. Once just a few hundred metres away from the crash site, we were alone again. The wind was blowing and the rain still fell, but only light and more than manageable than before.
We soon arrived at our first unknown river crossing. It wasn't bad. Reasonably fast flowing and thigh deep on me. The problem is the sand. The river picks up the sand and washes it all down with no level of the water free from it. So everything that goes in the water gets filled or covered with sand. But we pressed on. The rain still falling but in a dream like landscape of uninterrupted black sand, moody skies and crashing waves. Honestly one of my favourite spots of our trip. So simple yet so beautiful and raw.
The black sand seemingly stretched on forever. An unbroken abyss that swallows all light. Our footprints were the only sign of civilisation. It was a near unrivalled feeling. We felt so good, like we could hike forever and ever. Eventually, we passed some ATV tire tracks and soon made it to our next river crossing. This river was huge. We could see where is flowed out of the glacier and straight onto the black sand. I tried crossing but it was above my waist not even a quarter of the way across. The power of the water almost swept me off my feet. We decided to hike back up towards the road. This took some navigating through little side streams and deep sections of the river as well as through lupins and brush.
Once we reached the road, we had a quick lunch, eating everything left in the bottom of our food bags. I am still not perfect when it comes to food. I have such an appetite when hiking, I simply cannot carry enough. But we scraped out the last of the noodles and stale cheese and ate it all. The final push was all road walking. A long one mind. At this point getting to the south felt like more of a formality than enjoyment, but the views from the road were nothing to ignore. We had a quick break at the junction. People looking down at us sat in the dirt from their shiny 4x4s. Who would have guessed this was a "holiday". We crushed the last of the road walk and the final climb towards the lighthouse. We passed so many day hikers and tourists looking at us caked in dust and dirt. We hadn't seen a proper shower in about a week. We made the final climb and there it was. The southern tip. The off-white lighthouse surrounded by hundreds of people and steep black cliffs below us. I felt nothing. We took a quick photo and we were on our way. Maybe it hadn't sunk in yet. Am I still hung up on missing miles? How childish and stupid was I for that. We'd had fun, and even though it wasn't perfect, this was still an achievement. I don't think we knew how to feel. There was no sense of relief or pleasure for what we had just done. We now just had to hitch out, buy food, stay the night in the hostel and get back to Reykjavik before our flight.
Jump forward a few days, I have had some time to reflect. We would have been stupid to push on. It very likely would have ended up with a destroyed tent and a call to search and rescue. What we had achieved was huge. We should be proud and we are. That sense of achievement did come, it was just delayed. I guess it takes a while to sink in. What an amazing trip and I can't wait to do it again. Oh wait, I am! From the 22nd of August I will be solo hiking the Peaks of the Balkans Trail. How about that. I found more time after all!
