July 17 – Southeast Coast: It was a twenty-hour day. Up at 6:00; out of here by 6:45, back at 12:15, bed at 2:00 AM. Long, but really a good day.
Food combination was interesting as well. Stopped in Selfoss at a bakery for flaky pastry, skyr, espresso. Later, at a truck stop we picked up some mutton salami sticks (and they are good). Lunch was at a food wagon at Jökulsárlón by the glacier lagoon where we had “lobster” rolls (quite yummy). Oh, lobster here means langoustines, all local. Then dinner in Vik finishing about 10:00 PM with local bread, fried camembert, lovely charr, and apple pie with vanilla ice cream – all but the charr shared. J and D had seafood soup as their main course.
The objective as we left Reykjavik was to drive all the way to Jökulsárlón and the glacier lagoon. This is about five hours of driving time. And it rained along the way, but cleared up by the time we arrived. The lagoon is at the foot of the glacier, and you can see its field. Big chunks of ice break off from the glacier and sit in the lagoon. As they melt, they move into a stream that ends up at the ocean at Diamond Beach. The chunks hang up there until they melt enough to be swept downstream. We spent quite a bit of time by the stream shooting to both still the water flowing around the ice chunks and slowing it down with a neutral density filter to silky smooth. Got back in the car, drove across the bridge over the stream, climbed to vantage points and spent time with the huge array of big chucks in the lagoon all crowded together. Had late lunch at Heimahumar Food Wagon as described above.
So, that was as far east as we got. Next major stop was heading west to Vatnajokull National Park to see the Svartifoss waterfall and some of the lesser ones there as well. While our midday at the glacier area was sunny, our visit here was rainy and chilly. The trail up to the major falls is, from the parking lot where we parked, very steep, difficult, and is about two miles up to the top. It was hard. We stopped a few times along the way to catch our breath.
The Svartifoss falls are known because of the black basalt columns that frame it. And it’s lovely. I stayed up at the hilltop vantage point since the trail down to the falls is steep and would be too taxing for me to try to come back up to where I was. But J and D did it and loved the perspective of the falls they got all the way down at the bottom. If it had been sunny and a bit warmer, I would have joined them. While the trail getting back to the car was downhill and we didn’t have to stop to catch our breath, the steep part was slick and as hard to navigate going down as it was coming up. I slipped at one point and ended up on my butt. No harm.
Back at the car, it was already after 6:00. We headed west and made a stop at a strange field of green covered lava boulders (Green Lava Walk). Weird and neat. Onward to Vik for dinner at Suður-Vík, restaurant, café, bar as described above. Lovely dinner and service.
On the road again about 10:00 we marveled at the changing light. Were driving some of the time directly into the sun. While sunset is listed at 11:05, after-sunset lit clouds were visible almost to midnight. And we could also see moonset. Got back at 12:15, but with downloading, shower, shave, it was 2:00 before I got to bed. Long but well-worth it day.
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