On the second day, we returned to the airport to pick up our RV which would be our home for the next week, which we had reserved through
Motorhome Iceland. It turns out that all of the RVs were stick-shift even though we had picked the one model on the website which didn't *specify* manual so we assumed it was an automatic. Oh well. Fortunately I knew how to drive a stick but that meant that I would be doing all of the driving since neither James nor Harris could drive it. In Jeremy and Jillian's RV, they were in the same position with Jeremy doing all of the driving.
Jillian had planned the entire trip down to the minute with all of the must-see sights. We were to start in Reykjavík and drive Highway 1 clockwise around the entire island in a week.
Our first stop of the trip, after about 3 hours of driving and getting a little bit later of a start than we had planned, was the Snaefellsnes Peninsula to see the
Rauðfeldsgjá Gorge. It was a short hike up to the gorge with a waterfall ("foss" in Icelandic). We snapped a few photos and probably stayed longer than we should, but it was a beautiful sight.
Then we continued another half-hour or so to the
Kirkjufellsfoss, another waterfall, which was next to a scenic cone-shaped mountain. This parking lot asked guests to pay since it was private but their website wasn't accepting payments. It looked like they were building it out to be a big tourist attraction complete with lights in the parking lot which was a little disappointing.
We stopped at the next town at a little diner to grab a bite to eat (to-go since we were already behind schedule) and our first diesel fill-up. Back on the road again to get to the
Systragil Camping Ground where we arrived pretty late. The campgrounds here aren't like they are at home... they're really just a grass parking lot and you park wherever, side by side to other sprinter vans, RVs, and cars. We probably woke up everyone else in the campground with the diesel engines of the RV humming as we looked for the electrical hookups. After a long day, we were off to bed.