Across the black sands and over the glaciers

---

We enjoyed our first night in our hotel in Skaftafell. The hotel has fantastic views of the surrounding countryside,a turf church on site and three little fairy houses by the front door to welcome any of the Hidden People who might pay a visit!
Our plan for the day was to spend the morning searching for puffins and then head for the National Park where we would have opportunities to explore the local trails, visit the Black Waterfall and maybe do some ice climbing.
We were all very excited about seeing the puffins. Iceland is home to one of the world's largest colonies of puffins. Over half of the world population of the Atlantic Puffin breeds in Iceland. Our guide also told us how during breeding season Icelandic children mount rescues of baby puffins. A baby puffin is called “Pysja” in Icelandic. In August millions of newborn puffins leave their burrows in the cliffs of Heimaey—the main island in the Westmann Islands. The puffins leave at night, using the moon to navigate. But the streetlights of Heimaey seem to throw off some of the young birds' flight plans. When that happens, it's time for the children of Heimaey to launch the Puffin Patrol—basically a search and rescue operation for the befuddled birds, which, instead of flying out to sea, fly into town where they crash-land and end up on the streets. The children of Heimaey have been saving young pufflings for generations. In fact, at the end of the summer, releasing them by the hundreds to the safety of the sea has become a local tradition. Unfortunately the cute story is somewhat negated by the fact puffin is also a popular addition to Icelandic menus!
The coach left us in a wonderfully deserted spot where and we were all transferred into the open trailer pulled by a tractor. We soon realised the need for this as the black sands were sodden and we frequently sank down and struggled over the terrain. The drive towards the cliff was great fun. We sped across the black sands, the impressive Mt. Oraefajokull standing behind us and a view of an empty black desert spreading out before us. We eventually reached the cliff where the puffins breed and found ourselves confronted with a steep slope of black sand. Thinking it looked like fun I set off at a run with one of the other guys from our group. I managed to be second to the top of the cliff and certainly got a good work out in the process. Our local guide was very good and amazingly gave his lecture in both English and German as we had been joined by some German tourists as well. We were however disappointed to learn that the puffins had already left and if we were lucky we would see a few of the stragglers! Somewhat outraged by the fact we had come all this way only to find there wouln't be hundreds of the comical birds waddling around our feet we were a fairly sorry group who trudged onwards uphill in the cold wind and the drizzle. I soon found that puffins weren't the only birds worth seeing though. We almost tripped over a young gull resting under a tuft of grass. A second one stood a little way off and they both seemed very tolerant of the large group of people wandering towards them. The guide even knew the birds!! As he works there all the time he remembered all the birds that had hatched that season. I don't know how he could tell the birds apart on sight but he was very definite about who they were and even told us the names he'd given them! We continued our walk uphill when we saw our first puffin... unfortunately it was a dead one. We saw many puffin holes and as we crested the hill we saw a pair of Giant Skuas resting on a ledge who then dropped from the cliff and soared off as we approached.
We passed through a herd of sheep at the top of the hill and finally approached the edge of the cliff where with a bit of help from the few people who had binoculars or tele lenses on their cameras we saw our puffins. Our puffin sightings are quite amusing in hindsight but were very disappointing at the time. We saw maybe six puffins down on the cliff face - too far away to see properly or get any decent photos of. A large group of black specks were floating on the tide out to see and we had to take our guide's word that those were the puffins leaving their summer breeding ground. We moved on, saw one puffin proudly standing on the edge with three fish in his mouth, took a few steps forward and lost him as he disappeared down the cliff. Poor fellow probably thought we were after his dinner! We managed to count another fifteen or so puffins down on the cliffs but again they were all to far away to see properly. We continued our walk and I was slight mollified when I came across an impressive Giant Skua sitting on a mound of grass who didn't seem at all concerned by my approach and let me get quite close.
We continued our circular trail and then headed back down the sandy slope and clambered back into our trailer for the drive back across the sand. Despite the cold and the lack of puffins we were all quite cheerful and we raced back over the sands, Mt. Oraefajokull looming over us as we got closer.
We arrived back at our deserted drop-off spot only to discover the coach had not arrived. Cold and bored we set off walking towards the main road and finally met our coach and moved onto the National Park. There were a few options of what we could do on arriving. I was very keen to try the ice walking, but unfortunately because of limited time it meant I had to forego the walk to the black waterfall. I comforted myself with the knowledge that there are hundreds of waterfalls in Iceland and I was definitely going to get the opportunity to see a few more!! A few of our group set off to do the walk while the rest of us sat around a picnic bench waiting for our local guides to take us up on the glacier. One determined couple however did manage to sprint to the waterfall and back in time to come ice walking but they looked so near collapse I think remaining on the picnic bench was the better idea! We got fitted out with crampons and then all piled into the van and drove up towards the glacier. We had a fair walk before reaching the ice and then all watched the guide show us how to tie the crampons and all stood wobbling around on one foot while trying to figure out what we should be doing with the straps. We were also all given ice picks. We were told we wouldn't really need them as we weren't going all the way up the glacier and wouldn't need to do any climbing. However the ice picks had two very important functions: 1) They're good for leaning on when you feel tired and 2) They look good in photos. The second we all discovered on our own as the first thing any of us did after getting our gear on was all line up for pictures with the glacier behind us. We set off over the glacier. Unfortunately the glacier was wonderfully dirty and it looked more like we were walking over mud than ice. It was only the crunch under our feet as we stamped our crampons in that showed the difference. We wandered along in a little crocodile line, practicing walking in the crampons and going up and down slopes without slipping. Our guide was amazingly patient and looked on tolerantly while every person stopped to take photos of the first bit of blue ice that could be seen! We soon started walking in earnest and it was so much fun when we began stepping over crevices and walking up steep slopes. It was amazing to think it was real slippery ice under our feet and only a few pieces of metal spike were holding us in place. The higher we walked the cleaner the ice got and the more amazing the views of the mountain towering in front of us. We got to a fairly high point before being told that was as high as we could go in our time limit, and because it wasn't much further on that we'd need to start climbing and we didn't really have proper equipment for that. We set off back down the way we'd come, all walking more confidently and complaining more about how much the crampons were starting to make our feet ache. Back on solid ground we washed our crampons clean and walked over to the 'car park' area to await the return of our van. We sat around on rocks and several people somehow produced chocolate from their pockets (good thing we were walking on ice I guess - stopped it all melting!) and started handing pieces out. The driver looked bemused to find the tour group sitting at the bottom of the glacier munching on chocolate (obviously other tour groups don't come so well prepared!!)
We said goodbye to our guide and returned to the hotel for a late lunch. In the afternoon we explored the local area. I went to visit the nearby turf church and traditional graveyard.

---

Comments

[jintysjourneys]

An amazing place.
Yes it certainly was a brilliant day. From black sands to puffins and ice walking! No comment about the best kept toilet in Iceland though.