Tom at the top of the Whirling Dervish, Skafta

Day 2 on the Upper Skaftá

Woke up nice and snug in my dry down sleeping bag after a good nights sleep. Poor Andy did not fair so well, and had a pretty rotten night wrapping in our spare clothing. Obviously dry bags are not a dry as we had hoped. Tom has developed somthing of a foot problem, and I hope that does not come to anything serious.

Tom in the middle of the Whirling Dervish, Skafta

The first rapid of the day was the one that had made us stop the night before. We called it the Whirling Dervish and I elected to go first, with Andy stationed at the bottom with the camera. I got the correct line to begin with, but drifted off towards the end and clouted my boat. Nothing too drastic. Tom came next and had a head-on on the fall, and further aggravated his foot. The rapids continued, but nothing quite so difficult, and the river continued to break up and re-join after some islands.

After a while we got to the egress and made our way over to the Landrover, running some of the drops we had previously kayaked when we had run the middle section of the Skaftá. Andy got the Landrover, and we packed up in the rain. Got a cup of coffee at the hut where we left the Landrover. The chap running the hut had heard of our Icelandic kayaking friends and had done some paddling himself.

We departed, in the rain, and headed for the Bank, stopping for lunch on the way. Bank, Post Office and Swimming pool were all open, so we managed to post letters, get some more money, and have a wash and a swim. Tried a bit of an underwater holding breath competition, but I kept getting the giggles, so it was all a bit hopeless. Still raining when we left.

Friendly cows near Kirkjubæjarklaustur

Now camped in a field a few miles from Kirkjubæjarklaustur in a field full of cows. Still raining at 21:30…..