Half-Term Holiday: Iceland Day 2

12^th February 2018

This morning we were up not so early (7am) ad ready to go before 9am. I like that breakfast is included in all our stays this trip. So we headed off, actually still before dawn! Our first stop was just off the highway and we stopped there basically because it looked cool. Turns out it was an old farm that was destroyed by volcanic activity, called Laufskalavarda. Very cool volcanic rocks in the pristine snow. And with damn too, very photographic. Then we went on the highway on to a short road off it to the Fjardaragljufur canyon. By this time the sun was up and the snow was very sparkly. We actually walked not very far, but it was a lovely view. And then we needed our sunglasses!

We drive on to our first town Kirkjubaejarklauster (or just Klauster, as it is apparently known) where we stopped for fuel (the recommend when driving in Ieland to never let the fuelget below half, just in case) and looked for food, but there wasn’t much. So we kept going. We tried to see a waterfall, Systrafoss, except it was frozen over! We could hear it but not see it under the snow.

On our way to Skaftafell, we passed a nice looking waterfall we cold see from the highway. Skaftafell is where we were staying, but there were cool things not far from it so we kept going.

We spent most of the afternoon about an hour from Skaftafell at a pair of lagoons. The first was Fjallsarlon, an iceberg lagoon It was lovely, with lots of ice bits sticking up from the water. Sheets of ice 30cm thick in places, broken off cleanly so you could see inside them. Ice balanced on ice, covered in snow. And we could walk among a lot of it, because it was so frozen!

After that we went to the glacial lagoon Jokulsarlon, which was phenomenal! We had a sandwich at the visitor center before heading to the lake. There are seals living around the lake, just chilling on the ice, and the icebergs were so cool! We took heaps of photos and walked as far as we could. Then we walked under the bridge to the Diamond Beach. Icebergs from the glacier get washed out to sea, then washed back on to the beach on the black sand. Talk about photogenic! We were here for at least an hour just taking photos – Richard got the whole setup going with timers and everything! He got some lovely shots.

By the tie we got back to the car it was past 4pm so we headed briefly to Skaftafell visitor centre to check out what walks we might do tomorrow. They recommended crampons for your shoes which we don’t have though, so I guess we’ll see. There are a few short walks though.