South Coast of Iceland – day 1

Despite spending the better part of the day sitting in lovely coaches and mini buses, it takes it outta of you! Say nothing for eating service (gas) station food mostly!  So another photo heavy post.  Some day, I may come back and spell the heck out of Icelandic to help y’all!

This is a water fall you can walk behind… and get drenched!
Pretty day postcard
Coming up alongside it
Through on the other side
Over one shoulder is water the other is the walking path behind the waterfall. It used to be a sea cliff, back in the stone ages or some time a VERY long time ago. Our guide was a geologist, so we learnt a heap!
So remember this – when all the Europe flights were disrupted
Here’s the now dormant volcano, it’s to the top left of the last red roof
Transition of the ass all down the mountain
Another ‘foss’ or water fall… (Skogafoss Waterfall)
Before taking the waterfall photo, I noticed these sheep. Only in the past week have sheep (and cows) come out of stables. And with it, all the lambs. Watching them cross was so cute!
Black sand beach with basalt cliffs – fricking FREEZING as I ate lunch on a rock… Reynisdrangar sea stacks
The rocks are fokeloric – when trolls are hit by sun light, they become stone, so they are trolls – from the town of Vik
Vik church. Vik is the most South most town in Iceland, then it’s lava fields. I spoke to a cashier – sounded SO British, but he was French – so curious
Carins are built as a way to ensure safe travels eastward…
Lava fields – the moss takes 80 years to grow. It has to wait until the lava cools of course. It dies from footfall, and goes brown
I was curious as to how thick the moss was – WAY deeper than common moss in Australia!
Weather is so changeable in Iceland – this is our first glimpse of a glacier. We learnt what a glacier was – it’s compacted ice, losing all the air. 6m of snow ends up compacted to 50cm!
What a glacier – we’ll hike on tomorrow.
Gob smackingly gorgeous glacier lagoon (save for blustering rainy cold weather!) Jokulsarlon
There were both ducks and seals in the water. I took a video as some of these ice pieces were moving int he current.
The guide was so kind to wait til the other people were out of frame… Whilst I bemusingly smirked

We are staying in a guest house, and it was WONDERFUL to get a hot meal.  I’d just subsisted the past nights, with a cold noodle salad.  The price was eye watering, but thankfully a huge serve (even the Americans thought so!).

Dinner at Country Hotel Gerði

4 Replies to “South Coast of Iceland – day 1”

    1. As you’ll have seen by more recent posts, I balanced gas station food with some ‘real meals’ in the guest house, and a degustation. Even added hot soup to a sandwich I’d made from breakfast materials (toast, cheese, meat and cucumber) was a nice piece of variety.

      The blue ice was mesmerising.

  1. Oh wow: gorgeous…that blue ice! Those are some hardy ducks and seals. And the mountains in the background are awe-inspiring. That is definitely a downside of travelling, the gas-station meals. 🙂

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