Waterfalls and Ice Caves

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We had quite a few plans for today before we met our tour in Vik at 11:00, so we got up early and were on our way shortly after 8. A short drive from our hotel brought us to Seljalandsfoss Waterfall. A very tall, beautiful waterfall right next to Iceland's main ring road. We put on our waterproofs (rain pants and jackets) and went to walk around the falls. You can get all the way behind these falls, which is pretty cool (and wet).

We walked behind the falls (I went all the way around) enjoying the view and the spray before heading on to our next location, Skógafoss.

Skógafoss is another huge waterfall close to the ring road. It's wider than Seljalandsfoss, and although you can't get behind the cascade, there's a path leading up to the top of the fall. Gilat, the kids and I climbed to the top. On one side of the climb a few Icelandic sheep were grazing on the hillside. They are gorgeous creatures! And next to the bottom of the falls we saw our closest view so far of Icelandic horses. Beautiful!

Still, we were in a bit of a hurry, so we loaded up into the van and drove up to a spot called Dyrhólaey, overlooking the Black Beach of Reynisfjara and the basalt stacks Reynisdrangar just off the coast. More on them later. We didn't have much time to absorb the scenery, and it was windy up there, but we still enjoyed the view.

From there we had to hurry to Vik and our ice cave tour. We made it just a few minutes late, and the super jeep was waiting for us. Dad opted to stay behind on this trip (it was a bit much for him) so the rest of us climbed up into the super jeep and off we went. The guide drove us across the 'desert' to the Mýrdalsjökull glacier.

Now, the desert isn't called that because of a lack of water. Quite the opposite, in fact. What happens is that the Katla volcano, a very active volcano under Mýrdalsjökull, bubbles up every couple of years and melts the ice cap that's plugging it. When all that melt water breaks through the ice, it floods the river leading from the glacier and the flood plain, washing huge amounts of basalt gravel towards the sea, and erasing anything that somehow managed to grow there since the last flood. These floods occur every couple of years, so the whole area looks like a desert, with almost nothing growing on it.

So we rode through the desert until we started going by some beautiful green hills, and soon after that we were riding through 'Game of Thrones' country. Really! Parts of the series (and a bunch of other shows and movies) was filmed there. To our right was the glacier, coated in black volcanic sand making it look like black craggy mountains with bright white streaks of snow. On our left were moss-green mountains. Tamar pointed left and said 'Season Three', then right and said 'Season Seven'. Pretty cool for those who follow Game of Thrones.

The jeep stopped near the glacier and we unloaded. Our guide gave us all helmets and crampons that fit over our hiking shoes, gave some safety instructions, and we were off.

Our guide took us onto the glacier, showing us some ancient ice that was here since the days of the first viking settlers. It looked like we were walking on black basalt hills, but underneath the black sand and gravel it's all ice, not rock. Pretty soon we reached some ice caverns. They weren't very large or deep, but we could stand up in them, surrounded by the glacial ice. Unfortunately, this was near the end of the glacier, so the ice was full of leftover volcanic sand, making it mostly black, not the ethereal blue we were expecting. A disappointment, but still interesting and we did have fun.

We climbed over huge chunks of ice, saw a few ice caves, a stream flowing inside the glacier and learned a bit about the glacier and the caves. After a couple hours on the ice we hiked back to the jeep. Our guide took us to a black sand dune, put on some loud rock and sped up the side of the dune! FUN! Then we drove back across the desert, and as a surprise addition to the tour, down to the beach for a walk. So we got a close up look at the black beach, saw the stormy waves crash onto the shore, and the huge rocks of Reynisdrangar where our guide told us the legend of how they came to be:

So many years ago, in Norway, a couple of trolls were harassing the farmers, stealing livestock, ruining crops and in general, making a nuisance of themselves. The farmers asked the king to save them from the trolls, but his army was tied up in a war with Sweden, so was unavailable. He decided on a diplomatic approach and offered the trolls a new land with great caves in return for leaving. They took up the offer and set sail one evening for Iceland. But as they were approaching the beach, trying to pull their boat ashore, the sun came out from between the clouds and the trolls (and their boat, don't understand that part) turned to stone. So the Reynisdrangar pillars are actually the trolls; Big & Fat, his wife Tall & Skinny, and their three-masted boat. Now, scientists will tell you about volcanoes, basalt, erosion & stuff, but we know the truth, don't we?

After some time on the beach the jeep took us back to Vik. We met up with Dad at around 3 PM. We walked around the souvenir and wool shops, had some soup at the restaurant and then headed on.

We stopped to shop at a tiny town called Skaftarhreppur, or Klaustur after the convent of Benedictine nuns that's been there for a few centuries. As an afterthought, we decided to go see the waterfall Systrafoss at the edge of the town. What a beautiful spot! The fall comes over the edge of a cliff, splits in two around a rock, and the two streams come together into one in the floor of the small forested valley. It then flows under a huge boulder that blocks the valley. Absolutely stunning, and no tourists!

It was almost dark by the time we arrived at our hotel at Skaftafell. The forecast for tonight was clear skies with an aurora forecast of 8. That's 8 on a scale of 0 to 9, or really strong! So we got to our rooms and were pretty antsy about whether we'd see the northern lights tonight. Later on, after we had some supper, we did see the lights from just outside the hotel. There is no town out here, so very few lights (other than the hotel's lights) to interfere with the aurora and we got a great view of them.

A little later on Gilat and I took the kids and the car and drove a couple kilometers away from the artificial lights. That's where we saw a really amazing light show in the sky! Green veils and shadows and clouds snaked and swirled and pulsed and glowed all over the sky, sometimes with tinges of orange and yellow. I got a few reasonable pictures on the camera but Gilat's phone camera really shone! Almost postcard-perfect photos of the lights with the glacial mountains as a backdrop. Fantastic! We must have stayed out there for over an hour in the freezing, clear night, just admiring the sky. Unforgettable!

We finally went back to the hotel after midnight, frozen stiff but giddy with excitement. Eventually we did get to sleep.

Tomorrow we're covering distance around the South of Iceland and the Eastern fjords.

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Photos

Seljalandsfoss
You can walk all the way around the falls

Shining ice
This is what it looks like when the guide shines a flashlight through the ice