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Published: July 29th 2006
Only a short drive today, which was good after a couple of fuller days. We first visited some basalt columns just off the road. The next stop was a turfed church. Iceland has quite a few turfed roofed buildings - they did it when wood supplies were low. Makes for good photos now!
We then arrived into Skaftafell National Park. It houses iceland's largest icecap - Vatnajokull, which makes up 8% of iceland. There are glaciers that form off it, 2 of which come either side of one of the mountains that leads up from the camp site in the national park. We decided to do a 17km mountain walk to get a better view of the icecap and see some of the glaciers. Again, remember I put my walking boots in storage and only had trainers? Really should have invested in another pair of walking boots as couldn't avoid some of the bogs, and by the end of it had very muddy trainers and soggy feet. But it was still good. Another problem was the low cloud that came in when we got higher up - by the time we reached the top of one of the ridges we
were at 710m and could just about see 10m ahead (we were playing spot the yellow pole marking the path we're supposed to be on!). In fact we missed the turning for the track to take us to the top of the 1100m mountain, probably a good thing as we wouldn't have been able to see the stunning views of the icecap from up there either! Did manage to see some of the glacier from lower down finally. We got to one spot where there was a signpost, and another couple stood there asking us whether we knew where on the route we were, they were doing it from the same rough guide we were, and we had no idea either - turns out we were further than we thought, but cos of the mist and missing the turning for the summit we were a bit confused. Thankfully someone else who seemed to have more of a clue came and rescued us and pointed us all in the right direction!
We stayed at a lovely hotel just outside of the national park - I think it was the best one we stayed in. The food was excellent and the
wonky us and a glacier!
Up a mountain, getting slightly cold and damp and less visibility by the second....staff exceptionally friendly, and the wine was cheeper than anywhere else, which was good as the bank account was begining to feel the strain of a very expensive economy over there!
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