Southern Iceland - Day 2

Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Well, we slept so late that we missed the massive hordes at breakfast, ha ha.  We didn't leave the hotel until 10 am.

We drove through more amazing fields of lava rocks covered with moss.  There is an amazing new site around every corner in Iceland.  There are a lot of one lane wooden bridges, and because they are curved up in the center, you can't see if traffic is coming or not.  No problems, they have built in parking spots so opposite traffic can pass.  A long bridge can have half a dozen of these, with several cars pulled over in both directions.

As we drove, we had the Vatnajökull Glacier on our left, for the entire day. Vatnajökull is the largest glacier in Iceland, over 8000 km2 (8% of Iceland's land mass). The glacier covers many active volcanoes, including Grímsvötn, Iceland's busiest volcano with eruptions every few years (the last one was in 2011). 

As we got nearer to the glacier, Anton decided to test out our 4 wheel drive, and popped out onto a stone road in the middle of a field.  But "road" is rather generous for what we were on.  We wanted to see if we could drive up to the glacier, and drove about 3 km in, but it seemed as if the closer we got to the glacier, the more it retreated.  

We spent a large part of our day at Vatnajökull National Park, which is Iceland's largest national park at 5000 km2 . The Skaftafell Visitor Centre helped us map out a hike for the day.  We took a hike starting from the camping area and passed two waterfalls called Hundafoss (Hound Falls, named for the many dogs that were swept over the edge), and Þjófafoss (Thieves Falls).  

We continued to the Svartifoss Waterfall (Black Waterfall). There are black basalt column walls that surround and shape the waterfalls. The rocks were formed by slow volcanic cooling, and then water and ice shot down from the cliff. 

Instead of climbing back down the mountain like most of the hikers, we cut across a few kilometers until we came to Sjónarnípa, a viewing area over the Vatnajökull Glacier.  We sat and enjoyed the magnificent glacier until we got too cold, and then started our way down.

The trail on the way down was quite challenging in spots, with no other hikers.  Did we take the right path?  When we finally got down to the bottom, we saw the sign that said this trail was "difficult".  No kidding!  In all we hiked abut 7 km, not bad for old folks like us!

We then headed over to the Jökulsárlón, a famous glacier lagoon, used in movies such as Tomb Raider, Batman Begins, A View to a Kill, and Die Another Day. Huge chunks of ice regularly break off the Vatnajökull Glacier and collect in the lagoon until they float out to sea. 

The lagoon started to form in 1934 when the glacier started to retreat in the area. In 1956 the lagoon was about 4.5 km2, and today it is about 25 km2. Jökulsárlón is the deepest lake in Iceland, being 260 meters deep in front of the glacier edge.  There was a seal checking us out while we were scooting around the icebergs.  A small zodiac went ahead of us clearing ice out of our path.

We had the choice of an amphibian vehicle which started on land and proceeded to the water, which we thought would be very cool, but the tour only lasted 30-40 minutes. So instead we pre-booked the zodiac tour which lasted one hour long and got closer to the icebergs.  However, when we arrived, we were told that the zodiacs were not running because the ice was too thick in the lagoon.  So we had no choice but to take the amphibian after all.  Of course, the person who informed us of this was the operator of the amphibian, so who knows......

We ran into the couple from Boston we met on the first day, Louis and Lisa.  They are on the exact same 10 day Nordic Visitor tour, but they aren't staying at any of the same places.  Strange.

We were supposed to stay at Fosshotel Vatnajökull, but a week ago our agent told us we couldn't stay there due to construction and we had to stay at a different hotel. We 

asked if we could go directly to the new hotel, but our agent insisted that we show up at the unavailable one first, and they would direct us.  Well, when we got there, the parking lot was full, but it was all construction workers who looked at us funny when we asked where to go.  They were friendly enough to offer us coffee,though. Apparently they were supposed to be open by now but are running behind in construction, too bad because it will be VERY nice when it is done.

We found our new hotel 5 minutes up the road, there are 4 "wings" with a giant meeting place in the center.  Our room was too close to the noisy group chatting in the center area, so we switched to a room on the end.  All the rooms smell like they've just been painted, and the window seemed to have been painted shut, but Anton managed to pry it open, so we'll be sleeping with the window open.  Since they keep the rooms so warm, that doesn't matter.  The room is clean and brand new, very nice, but if we had seen this hotel from the road we would have driven right by because it looks rather dumpy on the outside.

We drove into Höfn to find a restaurant for supper.  Höfn is a small town located on a thin strip of land between the sea and the Vatnajökull Glacier.  For this being our early day, we sure ended up eating supper late.  We showed the gluten-free restaurant card and the waiter specifically asked about the dish Frankie was ordering.  When it arrived, there were some round things that looked suspiciously like they were deep-fried in wheat. The waiter double-checked with the cook, and came back and said the cook had been more worried about what was inside the ball. Oops. So he took the dish away and came back 20 minutes later with a brand new piece of salmon.  Meanwhile, Anton enjoyed his gluten-bomb pizza.