Advertisement
Published: August 27th 2008
After a night in a somewhat interesting guesthouse we journeyed on towards the National Park. Our first stop was at the most beautiful waterfall in the world. (Yes. I've changed my mind today or at least it was the most beautiful waterfall today. )We stopped at the Seljalandsfoss waterfall where it is possible to walk behind. Once again there were only a few people ahead of us so photos came out well. It's amazing how few people there are at each place. A real pleasure for us! It was a beautiful place and the waterfall with its backdrop was tranquil and peaceful.
We drove onto the Skogar Folk Museum which was fascinating. This is known as one of the best folk museums in Scandinavia. At last we discovered a little bit of history amongst the dramatic landscapes. The turfed roofed houses were restored and each house presented a different picture of life in Iceland in the past. The little turf houses were occupied until the beginning of the 20th century. They were very compact and seemed warm. We had an excellent tour by a local guide which was very informative. The aged man who had started the museum came
out to play us some music on a stringed instrument. He later cornered us again in the church to play the organ.
We stopped at yet another waterfall at Skogofoss. This magnificent waterfall was 60 metres high.Was I beginning to get a little laid back about these magnificent natural wonders? I had always thought 'High Force' waterfall in County Durham was amazing but this one was at least 10 times larger (well 5 times maybe) We didn't have much time here so I made the mad decision to use the 20 minutes to get up the steps to the top and back. It is when I had run up the hill to get to the steps that I realised that maybe my competitive running days were over. The climb to the top was then quite hard as I had breathed in too much cold air! I made it to find that the climb maybe had not be worth it. Maybe I should have been like the tortosie and not the hare as others in the group made it up to the top with me. What was at the top was of course a large river which tumbled over the
Skogar Folk Museum
Turf roofed housesedge. Well that is what a waterfall is!
We carried on eastward towards the small town of Vik. The beach there is apparently voted one of the top ten in the world. The weather was dull, very windy and cold. The black sand obviously was not at its best. We were warned that the waves were dangerous and not to go too near. We tried to get some atmospheric photographs of the sea and sand! I duely collected some of this marvelous black sand to keep! We didn't see any puffins but were told later there were a few at the end of the cliff.I think we are a little late in August to be seeing them.
We drove further eastward across the 'Black Desert' , a part of the world's greatest lava field created in modern times. (1783-4) I thought I'd better get a bit of history in this trip.
Our final stop of the day was to walk along the beautiful gorge of Fjadrargljufur canyon, carved out by water since the ice age ended in Iceland some 10,000 years ago. This was a lovely walk with the water in the gorge tumbling below. Lots
Another house
They were very sweet of suitable places could be found for photographs!There are more to put on.
Finally we drove across the great sandy plain of Skeidarasandur, which was flooded in 1996 by glacier meltwater from a volcanic eruption under Glacier Vatnajkull. We felt we'd had a very full day and were glad of a two night stop.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.138s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 20; qc: 93; dbt: 0.1014s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.3mb
