Today we embark upon our main reason for being in South Iceland – a whitewater rafting trip.
You’d think that – with the many varied and beautiful rivers in Iceland – this would be easy to organize. Except we’re doing this trip with children, and there is but a single whitewater rafting company in all of Iceland who has drysuits that fit a 10 year old – Secret Local Adventures.
Could we go with wetsuits instead? Well, we could – but these rivers are essentially glacial runoff, which means that they’ll be just above freezing, and any children immersed in them for any amount of time will rapidly become well and truly miserable – so the minimum age for that is 11 years. Sigh.
What about in the North or East of Iceland? Well, the rivers there tend to be somewhere around Class 4 – and you need to be at least 18 years of age to even attempt them.
Secret Local it is, then.
We’re roughly halfway into the drive when my wife turns around and says, “Just so you’re aware, there’s a significant chance that rafting won’t happen today.”
She explains that we have not yet paid for our rafting, so tough to say whether the company will genuinely remember that they have a tour on today. “There’s maybe a one-third chance the trip will go entirely as planned, a one-third chance that it will be cancelled, and a one-third chance that the operator will have forgotten about us but make it happen anyway.”
We continue the drive, and soon arrive at Secret Local. There’s no sign of life, except for an adorable foal in their field, nursing from its mom:
That’s soon too much for it, and it lies down to have a nap:
We were told to be here for the 9:30 am rafting trip, but we’re not sure whether that means we need to be ready for a 9:30 am departure or if we’ll start getting ready at 9:30 am. I give it til 9:10 am and then call their number – and it’s clear that I’ve woken co-owner, Manni. “Be with you in a few, just need to have a coffee,” he says.
So it looks like it’s option three – but at least we’re going rafting.
My wife shakes her head and says she just got the vibe this would be a relaxed departure from the emails. In total she had 21 email chain with them that stretches back a full year. Not the most auspicious start, but company has been around for 10 years and has a great safety record and fantastic reviews.
Manni welcomes us into the ‘mudroom’ right around 9:30 am. There are some brief delays as he prints off some extra paperwork, but the delay isn’t as bad as we’d feared. Hjalli – the other half of Local Secret – soon arrives, and we are fitted for fleece thermal suits, drysuits, life jackets, gloves, shoes, helmets and fun special accessories.
(There’s a minor argument over who gets the blue tutu – Manni having already claimed the orange one – but our son eventually wins out. Our daughter ends up with Manni’s daughter’s helmet which has some artful skeleton hands making some very expressive hand signals, so we’ll count that as a tie.)
Manni notes that the dry suit keeps people dry roughly 80% of the time – every once in a while there is a pinprick hole, and that’s enough to let some water in. Regardless, we should remain comfortable even if a modest amount of water gets into the suit. However, we have brought a change of clothes just to be on the safe side.
There’s also a ‘Wall of Shame’ that begs a few questions:
This is apparently updated whenever someone flips a raft – or, you know, sleeps through a booking
We’re careful to keep the arms of our drysuits knotted around our waists so that we avoid overheating, and then take the 20 to 30 minute drive from Local Secret to their launch site.
There’s some final preparations as we get ourselves into our dry suits – Manni asks that he do the final zippers, as they are expensive and if anyone is going to break them it should be him. One of us has a torn seal around the neck, but thankfully there’s a spare drysuit for just such an eventuality. There is also one last chance to use the ‘facili-trees’.
We all need to pitch in with getting the raft down to the wooden ramp, but then Manni takes it from there while the rest of us follow on behind. We pause briefly to pick some wild Icelandic blueberries, and then we are off and away:
It’s perhaps the favourite rafting ride any of us have ever done. Not does the scenery have all the rugged hallmarks of a glacier river valley – basalt columns and smooth-worn lava rock – but the river itself is a beautiful smoky blue.
The rapids are challenging without being overwhelming, and we even get the chance to stop and do a bit of cliff jumping:
We have to ‘burp’ our suits before we jump, which we accomplish by pulling open the neck hole and then submerging ourselves in the water – but not past the neck!
I’m so worried about my sunglasses that I forget to cross my legs when I jump – with predictable results – but it’s an exhilarating experience nonetheless.
The first few rapids are the most intense, but we then have the chance to spice it up a little – spinning the raft, trying to stand up on the bolsters, and even hopping out of the raft itself and coasting down the river in our drysuits:
Manni is hilarious, and you can genuinely tell that he truly loves what he’s doing.
We chat quite a bit while we’re rafting – he’s impressed that we landed at Jan Mayen, as it’s his dream to go skiing down the volcano. He further recommends we watch the video Congo: The Grand Inga Project and that we hike the Ásbyrgi canyon, which Norse mythology claims was formed from a horseshoe dropped by Sleipnir. It seems that – every trip we take – the travel list only grows longer.
We eventually spot Hjalli around the corner, ready to pick us up:
Our arrival – from Hjalli’s perspective
I’m not entirely sure how long we’re out on the water – somewhere between one and a half and two hours, I’d wager – we’re ready to be done at that stage, though Manni notes that the river carries down all the way to the ocean. It could likely be done in a single day, though the remaining rapids aren’t particularly exciting.
We help to re-load the raft – thankfully the bus has driven right down to the water’s edge, and then hop back aboard the bus. There are blankets for those of us who are feeling chilly.
It’s perhaps another 20 minutes back to the Secret Local ‘mudroom’. We rinse off our borrowed shoes, and then strip off the drysuit and pull it inside out.
And – the drysuits held up pretty well. Myself, our son and daughter each have one wet sock, while my wife has remained completely dry.
Hjalli then send over the photos via AirDrop (no additional charge) and we prepare for the second phase of the day – a trip to Laugarás Lagoon.
Except – it’s already 1:45 pm, so we are running way behind schedule. We’re supposed to be entering the Lagoon at 2:15 pm, but we want to have lunch at their restaurant first. We’ll have no option but to ask the front desk whether they can accommodate a later start time.
But first, the verdict on Secret Local Adventures – we thoroughly enjoyed rafting with them, and it’s clear that Manni and Hjalli care deeply about providing the best possible rafting experience. Yes, there was something of a blip at the start, but that was more an amusing anecdote than the source of any real annoyance. So – highly recommended, and we hope to go rafting with them again the next time we’re in Iceland.
Back to Laugarás – this is a relatively new addition to Iceland’s lagoon scene, with the doors opening less than a year earlier in October 2025. It boasts a two-story natural spring lagoon with a restaurant on site.
Thankfully, the staff are very accommodating and there’s no issue with us having lunch before our reservation. My wife and kids visit the soup bar – which includes tomato and cauliflower soup as well as fresh-baked sourdough bread:
Photo Credit: Laugarás Lagoon Instagram
I have the Arctic char:
The kids finish off with strawberries and ice cream:
And a lemon sponge cake:
All very tasty – the soup and bread seems to particularly hit the spot after that time out on the river.
From here, we collect our wrist bands and towels and head into the changing area. Like all Icelandic hot springs, guests are expected to take a shower – without a bathing suit – immediately before entering. However, Laugarás also has individual shower stalls for those who are more privacy minded.
As well as a large, Scandi-modern changing area (Photo Credit: Laugarás Lagoon)
The lagoon itself is a striking combination of nature and clean architectural lines:
Photo Credit: Laugarás Lagoon
And the included drinks are delicious. The kids both have non-alcoholic strawberry daiquiri slushies, while my wife has alcoholic strawberry margarita and I have the Laugarás cocktail – which a delicate mixture of lemon and gin that’s refreshing on this now-sunny afternoon.
We enter the lagoon – which is kept around 38 to 40 Celsius – and explore the various areas. I particularly like the waterfall area, which can be reached through a kind of hidden stairwell. The quiet area is also nice, but no one seems to really be respecting the ‘quiet’ part of it. Ah, well.
I also spend a bit of time in a shaded hot tub, while my wife and daughter enjoy both the steam room and the sauna. The steam room isn’t quite as hot as they’d like, but the sauna is lovely. We also all take a plunge in the cold pool – which is kept at a frosty 4 Celsius. My hands and feet started to tingle the moment I got back in the pool.
We manage perhaps 90 minutes at the pool before it’s time to head back to ÖÖD Hekla Horizon. My wife makes a delicious chicken ramen for dinner tonight:
While I take a few shots of the Hekla volcano:
And the other nearby scenery:
Hard to believe we’ll be on the road again tomorrow, but at least we have a relaxed start to the morning. Check-out time isn’t until 11 am, and then we aren’t able to check to Highland Base until after 3 pm – so there’s no point in rushing out the door.
That leaves us time to savour the sun set:
And to watch as the light slowly drains from Iceland’s rolling hills – as we try not to wonder whether we will survive our first foray onto Iceland’s notorious F-type roads.