Iceland 2016 (Part 4)
Since we had the car, we decided to head to the south coast of Iceland for our last full day. Another early morning departure, but we made good time heading east of Reykjavik heading towards Vik. Our first stop of the morning was a small farm near Eyjafjallajokull, the big volcano that erupted in 2010 and caused all sort of air traffic problems for Europe. The land is flat along the coast and then all of a sudden there is a towering mountain with almost no foothills. So when the volcano erupted, the farm was basically overcome with ash and soot. There was a very small, but interesting, museum here to talk about the farm, the eruption, and the aftermath. It was really fascinating to see how all of Iceland came together to help restore the farm and this whole region. The videos of the eruptions, the lava, the soot cloud were amazing.
After the museum, we headed further south along the coast till we got to Seljalandsfoss. This was another spectacular waterfall that you could see clearly from the road. We pulled over and walked up close to the waterfall. The water comes crashing down from the headlands into a little pool area and there is a little path where you can walk behind the waterfall. So very cool if not a little bit wet. We grabbed some very nice hot chocolate after that experience. And then we were back on the road. Next up was Skogafoss. Another waterfall. We first started by walking along the gravel riverbed into this small canyon made of lava rock to see the water fall into the small pool at the bottom. After that, we then climbed, and climbed, and climbed up the side of the canyon to see the top of the waterfall. It was really amazing.
And then back in the car heading to the black sand beaches just outside of Vik. As we got closer to Vik, we turned off the ring road to head out to some seaside cliffs and bluffs along the water. The wind had picked up and it was chilly, but walking along these massive lava rock cliffs and seeing the ocean crash into them was unbelievable. We had a really good time just walking along the water there. When we couldn't take the cold anymore, we hopped back into the car and headed to Reynisfjara which is famous for it's black pebble beach that divides the ocean from an inland lagoon. We walked along the crashing waves will we got to Halsanefshellir which is a huge basalt sea cave. It was really spectacular. We never made it to Vik proper. We needed to turn the car in so we turned around. We made it back to Reykjavik safely and that night we hit one of the famous hot dog stands. Icelanders love their hot dogs. Who knew?
