Monday 7-11
Today was a big one, we were heading from Reykjavik futher east, past the sights we had seen the day before and onwards towards Mývatn where we would be staying the night. Our plan was to hit the Skaftafell National Park and Svartifoss Waterfall, before heading onwards to Jökulsárlón, the glacial river lagoon (that's also the literal translation of its name). But first we wanted to stop at the tourist side of Reynisfjara Beach to see the basalt cliffs.
The weather was a little better than Sunday, but it was still pretty foggy. The drive was mostly through rocky terrain covered with green lichen, that looked like a rumpled green blanket. As we got nearer to Vik and Reynisfjara, mountains began to appear out of the fog.
Here's a time-lapse of the drive from just outside Reykjavik through to Vik.
Along the way we stopped to take photos of some more amazing waterfalls (its the slight pull-off we do about 55seconds into the video.)
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| Waterfall |
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| Another waterfall |
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| And another |
Eventually we completed the gauntlet of waterfalls and made it to the tourist side of Reynisfjara Beach.
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| The visitor center |
The sand was very similar to the eastern side of the beach but a little more gritty and with a few more rocks. There were some interesting formations on the way down to the beach:
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| Black rocks |
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| Path down to the beach |
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| First view of the basalt caves |
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| Front of the first cave |
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| Basalt pillars |
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| The beach |
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| Cam watching the waves |
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| Panoramic 360degree shot of the beach |
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| Close up of the basalt pillars |
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| Outside the cave |
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| Rocks in the cave |
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| The kids by the basalt pillars |
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| All of us by the pillars |
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| Reynisdrangar |
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| Waves breaking on the rocks |
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| Looking along the beach |
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| Waves coming in - you can see the small pebbles being tossed around by the waves |
Once we had finished at the beach, we headed out to our next stop - Skaftafell National Park and the Svartifoss Waterfall.
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| Directions |
While the park had some amazing hikes, and access to the base of one of the glaciers, we had limited time so our goal was Svartifoss.
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| The base of the glacier |
After hiking up a pretty steep slope we came to a waterfall that we assumed was Svartifoss. It was pretty cool, but it didn't match up the pictures I'd seen.
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| The waterfall |
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| The lengths we go to in order to get a good shot for the blog... |
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| The resulting photo was good though.. |
We managed to convince the kids to pose for a photo:
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| Say cheese! |
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| Not quite.. |
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| Much better |
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| All of us |
We hiked around to the top of the falls and looked down river:
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| Down the river |
Kris decided that she wanted to walk up to the next stop point to get another photo and that's when we saw the sign post. Turns out that the waterfall we'd been posing in front of wasn't Svartifoss, it was just a smaller fall downstream and we had further to go.. We sacked our tour guide and moved onwards.
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| ...over rocks... |
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| ...and bridges - it was like the travel montage from Willow |
We even hitched in with a tour group of young Americans, until we came in sight of the actual Svartifoss falls. This one actually had the basalt pillars I remembered from the pictures:
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| That's it up there somewhere... (saddest part is this was using Kris' zoom lens) |
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| And we made it! |
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| Svartifoss |
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| Svartifoss - this was the inspiration for the Hallgrimskirkja |
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| Looking back the way we came |
Here's the time-lapse of the drive from Reynisfjara to Svartifoss (nice view, pity about the fog):
Our final stop before heading to our accommodation was Jökulsárlón, the glacial lagoon. It is located at the head of the Breiðamerkurjökull glacier and was formed when the glacier receded from the ocean. It has been used for several movies - James Bond: A View to a Kill and Die Another Day, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, and Batman Begins.
The lake is filled with strikingly blue icebergs and the fog made it all that much more surreal.
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| Jökulsárlón |
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| Icebergs |
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| Kris and the kids |
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| Icebergs |
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| Kristine's seal |
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| Most of the ice was sky blue or crystal clear - like this piece |
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| Cameron found a surfboard |
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| As did Alana |
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| and Kris found the perfect ice dagger... |
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| so I took cover behind Cameron |
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| All of us |
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| This ice looked like a polar bear floating on its back |
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| Walking through the ice |
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| and resting |
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| The ice was crystal clear |
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| Cameron found an "ice cannon" that he could lay in, until he got stuck |
Then the fog started to really roll in, making it all much more otherworldly. We decided to walk to the end of the point and then head back before it got too dark.
By the time we got back to the carpark, the fog was getting pretty thick:
It was also starting to get dark, but it was time for the long leg of our trip. Driving through the dark to get to Lake Mývatn. It was a long drive and thick cloud covered the moon so there was absolutely no light other than the car headlights. The roads started fine, but soon ended up as gravel roads with a bit of ice mixed it. When we got to the worst of it, we found ourselves on a winding mountain road with no light, fog so thick we could only see a foot or two in front of the car and some sheer drops down the sides of the road. Its fair to say that when we hit sealed roads we were both ready to jump out and kiss the ground.
The darkness and fog coupled with the black rocks on the side of the road, made it appear as though the road was floating and it was only looking at google maps later, that we saw that we had been driving through mountains, past waterfalls etc, it was all just black for us. Overall it was a 5.5hr drive and by the time we got to Myvatn we were exhausted (it was about 10:30pm). There was a decent chance to see the Northern Lights so we stayed up for a bit, but the cloud cover was too heavy.
Total Travel:
Gullsmári - Reynisfjara - Svartifoss - Jökulsárlón - Mývatn. (822km, 10.5hrs)
Total distance traveled so far: 1339km
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