This morning we woke up with a beautiful beam of hot sunlight through our campervan. The heat got us up and ready to start our day back west! Almost as soon as we headed out of our campsite in Höfn, we began seeing massive glaciers on the mountainsides. We had to pull over and take a moment to admire these gargantuan and ancient wonders.
The first stop on today’s adventure was to the picturesque Glacier Lagoon at Jökulsárlón. If you think about the name, you might imagine what to expect upon arrival, but these picture don’t even do the site justice. The lagoon was littered with glacial fragments and to see the steady flow of ice from the original glacier in the background left us in sheer awe.
As the chunks of glaciers flow downstream, they eventually make their way out to sea, or at least most of them do. However, some get stuck along a beautiful black sand beach called Diamond Beach directly adjacent to the Jökulsárlón Glacier Lagoon. This beach provides some of the most unique scenery we have seen in our travels…you just have to take a look for yourself.
Less than 10km west of the Jökulsárlón Glacier Lagoon is the similar, but more intimate Fjallsárlón Glacier Lagoon. This glacial lagoon is like the little sibling to Jökulsárlón, but we really enjoyed this one because it was much less busy and we were significantly closer to the glaciers themselves.
It took us awhile, but we reluctantly left Fjallsárlón with Hofskirkja next on our itinerary. This unique site was the last church to be built with a traditional turf-style roof. The church was magnificent and the mountainous backdrop created a juxtaposition that we just can’t make up!
Skaftafell National Park was next on our list, and more specifically the Svartifoss hike (remember the –foss suffix means waterfall in Icelandic). Those of you that followed us during our U.S. roadtrip know how much national parks and nature preservation mean to us, so we had been looking forward to this for quite some time. The hike itself was about 1.5km along a pretty well maintained trail. There is definitely some elevation to gain, but if taken slow and easy this trail is totally doable for even inexperienced hikers.
The beautiful Fjaðrárgljúfur Canyon was the next major attraction along the Ring Road, and although there are numerous ways to go about enjoying this site, we chose a short hike along the ridge. There are other trails that can lead you to the base of the canyon (requires some light wading), but because of the weather, we opted for the short and sweet version.
After our light canyoneering, we drove to the small town of Vik on the southern coast of Iceland. The rain continued so we decided to eat at a local restaurant called Sudur where we split an Icelandic cheeseburger and Icelandic 4-cheese pizza. The restaurant was very lively as the World Cup semis were playing on the television in the bar downstairs, but that didn’t take away from the food experience whatsoever. The staff was friendly and the food was delicious.
We just lounged and relaxed in the campervan while the rain passed, but tomorrow we plan to explore the local area of Vik, so stay posted!