F26 is closed...

When one path closes, another will always open, bringing fresh opportunities to explore and grow. Adapt, overcome, and keep moving forward!

On our third day, we decided to keep going and forget about the closed F-26. We picked the F-35 instead, an easier way to cross Iceland from North to South, ending up in Selfoss. Look at the map below to see the two routes. Our aim was to get closer to the volcano in the South, near Reykjavík.

We had breakfast at the Guesthouse before leaving and went to Akureyri to buy food and snacks for the 200km offroad journey ahead.

We heard from locals and other travelers that there might be hot springs along the F35! I was excited; it was our first F-Road (supposedly one of the easier ones, and last year I found out it's not even considered an F-Road anymore—more about that in my 2022 journey blog posts 😄) and hot springs were waiting!

The ride itself wasn't very tricky, just avoiding potholes and some bigger rocks here and there on a mostly average gravel road. But the wild scenery was beautiful!

I don't remember how long we rode, but it was around 4 hours into the highlands when we saw other cars and a crossroads. In the distance, we spotted smoke—this had to be the hot spring people talked about. We stopped at the parking lot. There were only a few cars and not many people, but a small restaurant had drinks, snacks, and restrooms. Luckily, a group was leaving the hot spring just as we arrived, so we had it to ourselves for a warm bath (even though the weather looks nice, it's pretty chilly in Iceland, especially with the constant wind).

After taking a dip, we got hungry and went to the small restaurant for a piece of chocolate cake!

After another 4-5 hours of riding, we reached the end of F-35. Since it was getting late, and we were getting tired, we quickly stopped at Gullfoss and skipped the Geysir.

After riding for so long, we needed food again. We decided to stop at a pizzeria and ordered the biggest pizza available with an appetizer. The waitress looked a bit unsure because usually, people share such a big pizza 😄 We almost finished both pizzas, leaving 3 slices. The waitress packed them for us to go, so we could have a midnight snack (And I think she was pretty amazed by how much we could eat! 😄)

While the weather was nice all day we got into a little bit of rain when arriving in Selfoss where we booked a night in small guesthouse as we were pretty beat and needed some well deserved rest, because there was alot of distance to cover on the next day!