Reykjavík, Iceland
As we had a meeting last night we couldn’t visit the
waterfall so that was the first job this morning. Fortunately others from our
group had been so we were fully waterproofed to visit the waterfall and we got
soaked but it was totally worth it. The waterfall had a huge drop and you could
walk underneath and round it , which was quite impressive but very wet. There
was a second waterfall, which was smaller but to access you had to walk through
a river on stepping stones.
Second stop was the visitors centre at Porvaldseyri where
you could sit and watch a film about the 2010 volcanic eruption that caused so
much flight disruption around the world. The video was fascinating, the poor
farmers who had to uncover all of their fields from the ash. At some points 500
tonnes of ash was blowing out of the volcano per second. As if that wasn’t
enough it melted the glacier and caused the rivers to expand by approx. 200
times.
Yet another waterfall was the third stop of the day, this
time Skogafoss that had a beautiful view from the bottom but we also had to
climb the 572 steps to look at it from the top, yippee!! Also at Skogar was a
Museum that covered virtually all elements of Icelandic history so was well
worth the visit.
Final stop of the day before our long drive was the black
beach and basalt columns at Dyrholaey/Reynir. Even though it was a bleak day
the view here was pretty spectacular.
Then for the drive through a vastly changing plain from
green mountains to barren desert to yello moss covered lava, 000s of acres of
fields of Alaskan Lupin, what looked like huge sand dunes and latterly glacial
fields. What an exhausting day, finally arriving at the campsite for 9pm, bed
time.
We both voted not to move the van today and just do a couple
of the easy walks around the national park as we were rather pooped.
First of all we climbed to the black waterfall, Svartifoss,
which cascades down basalt columns. The waterfall wasn’t flowing aggressively
but the column structure was certainly very different. On the way back down we
did a few diversions to some less trodden paths and found a beautiful if tiny
waterfall all for ourselves.
Later we did a second walk down to the edge of the glacier
and the glacier lagoon and that was a beautiful and unbelievable sight.
2025-05-22