Day 1 - Hellismannaleid: Rjupnavellir to Afangagil
A spectacular, easy introduction to the story of the trek: rivers, waterfalls, ash plains, volcanoes and lava fields.
The Hellismannaleid is typically a three day hike covering 59 km (36 miles). It’s a quieter walk than most, one of the few wilderness walks left in Europe where you can go without seeing many people - or at least the one hiker who caught the same bus as we did indicated. He said he had walked in many places in Europe but this was one of his favourites because it remained isolated. Suffice to say he quickly scooted on ahead of us and we didn’t see anyone else for over a day! And isolated and wild it is!
The standard Day 1 is to hike 19 km to Afangagil. But our early bus arrived in Rjupnavellir around lunchtime, so we figured we wouldn’t reach Afangagil huts. Instead, we hiked partway (around 13 km) and wild camped outside the park boundary (no wild camping is allowed inside).
That meant we had a very long second day. To more easily spread the hike, we recommend slow hikers catch a later bus, stay at Rjupnavellir that evening and set off early the next morning.
The colours of the soil, the greens of the vegetation, all so different to Australia’s olive tints and hazy blues.
The ash is not what we expected - much coarser, more like fine gravel - so different to the sandy red dust of the arid areas of Oz.