Day 5 - The Ice in Fire and Ice

Sunday, June 20, 2021
Vik, Iceland
The day started with more roadside waterfalls, which from this point on are so numerous, only the extraordinary will be featured. Frequent quick stops provide the photo opportunities and selfie moments. The topography in the summer is beautiful and with a short growing season, the green mosses, grass, and flowers are bright and vibrant making for great scenery. We could not help ourselves, driving only a few Km’s at a time before stopping for more photos. Interestingly, this landscape would be interrupted along the way with large lava fields and a desolate area only of rock.
We drove today to an area where we heard it was possible to walk to a glacier. Really, I cant remember if we heard about it, read about it, or just saw a glacier and decided to try to walk to it. Whichever way, we found a trail and hiked to a glacier where we saw a small glacier pond (compared to some much larger ones) with many icebergs that had calved off the face of the glacier. Unfortunately, we were not able to hike onto the glacier as the trail was too dangerous for the remote location. After much metal debate, I decided any accidents at this point would take hours to rescue and would be a major inconvenience. It was really nice to be able to hike, this glacier trail just the two of us, avoiding crowds. Along the way back we saw the usual sheep grazing the area and even saw some geese flying by in front of the glaciers providing for a honking good photo. Annemarie's favorite purple flowers were lining the fields.   
Driving further down the road we ran into an old turf church in the countryside named Hofskirikja. Built in 1884 it is one of the few remaining in the country. I could really imagine how the turf would provide the necessary insulation for the residents.
This day continued to be packed with great experiences and memories. Our next stops took us to 2 different glacier ponds, the first of which Annemarie was able to hold her first glacier. Her excitement is contagious, so I had to take a lick.  While impressive, the next was the mother of Iceland glacier ponds, at least where we could get to. Called Jokulsarlon Glacier Lagoon we saw huge icebergs that had recently calved off the glacier and were on their way out to sea. Impressive in size and some a beautiful color blue, we watched as they slowly made their way into an inlet and out to sea. We were even treated by a seal hunting between da bergs.
Once the icebergs make it out of the inlet and into the ocean, they are subject to the tides, currents and winds. This sometimes causes them to wash ashore on what is called Diamond Beach as the melting ice can look like diamonds on the black sand. The imagery is difficult for my amateur camera skills to capture, but we will forever remember this beach.
We ended the day at a camp where they was a Viking movie set built, but Hollywood never came.
Note: you are not allowed to stand on the toilets according to a sign at this camp.

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