Reykjafoss and Fosslaug

Reykjafoss is a wide fall on the Svarta in Skagafjordur, dropping in several chutes over a rock step with a canyon below it, and it is the kind of place that would be signposted heavily anywhere else and is barely marked here. A few minutes downstream on the bank sits Fosslaug, a small stone-lined hot pool fed by a spring, holding perhaps four or five people at around 38 to 40 degrees, with the cold river running past it. The combination is the appeal: a natural pool with a waterfall in earshot. Both are on private land reached across a field, and there are no facilities of any kind.

What you actually see

• A wide fall in chutes - the Svarta dropping into a small canyon.
• Fosslaug on the bank - a stone hot pot at 38 to 40 degrees.
• Room for four or five - the pool is small.
• Almost no signage - the reason it stays quiet.

When to go

May to September; the field access is boggy outside that. Two hours.

Honest expectations

There are no changing facilities, toilets or bins, and the pool sits on someone's land. The walk crosses wet ground and a fence. The pool is often occupied. Riverbanks near the fall are undercut and slippery.

Nearby

Varmahlid is on route 1; Saudarkrokur and Drangey are north.