Iceland Day 2 — South

The plan was to wake up at 8:00, eat breakfast, which was included in the price of the room, and start our journey to the South. We overslept. The alarm didn’t ring (my mistake) and we woke up only at 10:00. So we missed the breakfast but, on the bright side, the Bonus store had just opened. We bought more bread, cheese and meat. Almost not disappointed in being behind schedule, we ate our breakfast in the car as we headed south.

The second day was all about water: waterfalls, rivers, beaches, and glacier lagoons. But not rain, we’ve had enough of that on day 1.

Our first destination was Seljalandsfoss waterfall. Slim and tall, it is situated between green meadows. Almost fairy tale picturesque. And the “almost” is only because of the hordes of tourists around it. Well, when I say “hordes”, I mean there are always people blocking a shot that I’m trying to take.

Seljalandsfoss has an additional exciting feature — one can walk behind the waterfall. That way it looks much more powerful — a stark contrast to its graceful appearance as you approach it from a distance.

Continuing our fairy tale analogy, only half a mile away from Seljalandsfoss, like a princess in a tower, hides its beauty Gljúfrafoss waterfall. There are two ways to see it — one is to climb up a wooden ladder and see it from above and the other is to follow along a rocky edge of a creek through a narrow gap in the cliff.

Water falls into a large cave spraying everything and everyone inside it. We couldn’t resist climbing onto a large slippery rock inside the cave and posing under the mist from the waterfall.

We spent too much time around the waterfalls, so given our late start, we were way behind schedule. We had to sacrifice our planned relaxation at Seljavallalaug swimming pool and shorten our time at our next stop — Skógafoss waterfall.

Skógafoss is glorious and mighty. It is 20 meters wide and drops from a cliff 60 meters high. I don’t usually like people in my landscape shots, but in the case of Skógafoss the people at the base of the waterfall create a frame of reference for us to compare them to the sheer size and power of Skógafoss.

Our next destination was Reynishverfi, a beach on the western side of Reynisfjall mountain near Vík í Mýrdal village. Well, the geography terms are not very descriptive. Let me try again. Our next destination was a beautiful beach featuring a wall of hexagonal basalt columns, caves, sea stacks and black sand.

At Reynishverfi beach we had our first accident with the camera gear. I was standing on the beach taking pictures, and suddenly one of the waves came on too fast and covered my backpack with all my lenses, iPhone, and some other stuff. Luckily, my backpack turned out to be water resistant and nothing got wet. What a nice discovery after all the years that I owned this backpack!

By the time we finished exploring the beach, it was 17:00 and we were kind of hungry, so a short stop for food was in order. We ate at the Vík’s gas station. We both had lamb soup with bread and coffee for which we paid 4250 kr (about $37.50). The soup may not have looked too appetizing but it was hearty and delicious.

After our dinner we explored the beach on the eastern side of the Reynisfjall mountain.

We also went up to the village’s highest point to take a couple of shots from above.

We spent more than 9 months preparing for this trip, so every stop was planned and scheduled. We had no time for unplanned sites but sometimes it was just impossible not to stop and admire a view or explore an unexpected wonder. For example, we were driving along Route 1 (the Ring Road that goes around Iceland) and saw what seemed like a garden of piles of lava stones that was definitely created by people. We had to stop and find out what it was about.

It turns out that, according to the legend, there was a farm there some 1120 years ago with 24 “doors on iron hinges” which was completely wiped out by an eruption of the Katla volcano. Travelers started to add small rocks in memory of the farm and later for good luck in their travels.

The tradition is still alive and the Icelandic government had to bring in more stones to the site to let the travelers continue to “do their thing.” We were traveling, too. Alex picked a small stone and carefully placed it on top of the highest stone pile. For good luck.

Our next planned stop was Fjaðrárgljúfur canyon. This was one of the few sites in the south where we haven’t met a lot of other tourists, most likely because of a bad gravel road and many other, more accessible, attractions. Despite its out of the way location there were very nice and clean WC facilities.

The canyon itself is not very big (only 100 meters high and about 2 km in length) but still has nice views and a hiking trail along its western edge.

We tried to find a place to take a photo of each other standing on the edge but everything was roped off. It did look a bit dangerous on the edge, but I think the rope was there to protect the cliff vegetation, not reckless tourists.

Finally, at 21:30 we made it to our rental cabin in a tiny village called Hof at the foot of the Vatnajökull glacier.

We unloaded our bags, ate ramen noodle soup that we brought from the States and went on to our next adventure — Jökulsárlón glacier lagoon (that’s actually saying the same thing twice, since Jökulsárlón means exactly “glacier lagoon”).

It’s hard to describe how magnificent the lagoon is under the setting sun. Pictures fail to do justice to its serenity and beauty.

For a while we watched how ice drifted into the open sea under the rising moon.

We photographed the ICELAND sign someone made from ice (thank you, stranger!) and, as the sun finally set around midnight, we headed back to our cabin.

Well, we had to make one more stop before bedtime. We needed to see another glacier lagoon, Fjallsárlón. For comparison, for completeness and perhaps for compulsion to see all we could see (we still couldn’t see everything, and decided to skip the nearby (and similar) Breiðárlón lagoon in favor of sleep).

Fjallsárlón was also very beautiful but we unanimously voted for Jökulsárlón as the winner in the glacier lagoon beauty contest.

Here is the map of the places we had visited on our second day in Iceland.
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