Today we got on the road early, driving through miles of spongy, neon yellow-green moss-covered lava. I stopped and got out to check; it is like walking on a sponge, so soft and you sink in a good inch or more. I laid down to look close, and the moss is carpeted with little flowers, fern like plants, lichens and general plant-like thingies.
The moss gave way to a barren lava sand desert, which then turned into km after km of blue Lupines.
Waterfalls, like white crayon lines on the long black cliffs running parallel to the road, and in the distance.
We cross on long, single lane metal bridges, over km wide black sand, braided rivers one foot deep. In the distance the mountains are split by a wide, rounded tongue of snow; snow that turns imperceptibly into clouds... the first glimpse of the glaciers.
Today I found one of those Special Places: one of the most scenic, nicest place to live, houses against an escarpment with waterfalls pouring off, green fields spread out in front. Here is exactly where it is:
Get to Kirkjubaejarklaustur, on hwy 1, about 71 km from Vik. As you approach this town, before you enter it, look left. You will see the most beautiful little cluster of multi-colored houses with a double waterfall coming right down on them. So beautiful, but this is just the warmup. Go 7.5km further south on Hwy 1, and you start into the best 5km section of Iceland.
Such neat houses and barns. White with red roof is most popular, though some prefer the blue or green roof. You could make a killing with yellow roofs I bet.
The farms and property are all so well kept up, neat as a pin (I gotta think of a better expression. How hard is it to keep a pin neat? And exactly how neat is a pin anyway?) unlike in America, or at least California, where it seems every other person with five acres along the road loves to display every car they, their kids and cousins have owned, along with various furniture, trash and other "collectables."
After about 170km, in which I tried, really tried my best to not stop too much to take photos (but I failed miserably) we arrived at our destination: Jökulsárlón.
Jökulsárlón is an iceberg filled bay and black sand beach at the foot of the largest glacier in Europe. It was not raining, but the wind off the ocean was fierce. The icebergs ranged in size from "so cute I want to take you home" to "Titanic sinker." The blues were unlike any other color I have seen, at once see through, yet glowing from within, so deep; like looking into millennia of skylight stored up until released. The ones swept out of the bay and down the channel, washed up on the black sand beach were clear, like crystals. Ice, tens of thousands of years old. Correction, added 12 August 2013: The glaciers have been forming in Iceland since the late Miocene, about nine million years ago!
So, I found one I liked, broke off a piece, and standing there freezing, I ate ancient ice in Iceland. All I needed was a small dram of single malt scotch to go with it.
Ice in Iceland.
Gail was an ice cube herself by now, so we got her a hot cocoa and rum, I went back out to take more photos, then we headed back towards Vik.
We stopped at Fjallsárlón, an arm of the glacier.
We drove a 4WD road into Svínafellsjökull, another tongue of the glacier, where we hiked up to the end of the glacier itself and marveled at rhe moraine, lake and icebergs.
We stopped in Skatafell in Vatnajökulsthjodgardur National Park, where we stopped for a quick snack of Celeriac Soup, kleinur roll and thick coffee before hiking to Svartifoss (Black waterfall). Along the way we passed two minor waterfalls. Svartifoss is special because it flows over a ledge of columnar basalt.
On the way home we hit heavy rain, of course.
We ate dinner at the small local cafe, Halldórskaffi, in lovely downtown Vik. I ordered their special hamburger, loaded with everything, and the Viking special beer. It is the darker beer, like a red or amber ale color, not like a porter or stout. Tasty beer, delicious burger. Gail snitched my fries and had the local Fossis ice cream, which I then snitched in return. It was excellent.
Now, as we sit in our water-heated cozy room, it is light out at 22:00, the rain is making a comforting sound on the tin roof, and we are sipping the last bottle of wine.
Tomorrow we head back to Reykjavik and fly out to London.
True Facts of Ísland:
8 degrees Celsius is 46 Fahrenheit, which is how warm it was today. Shirtsleeve weather when dry and calm, but freezing on the wind and rain. Today was half and half.
Those single lane steel bridges on Hwy 1 are built that way on purpose. They are destroyed pretty regularly when the rivers flood. Easy to rebuild. We passed an example of the flooding from a couple years ago: Skeidarársandur bridge wash out, in the alluvial sand flats. Google it.
The neon moss turns silver grey-green in the late evening rain.