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South Coast of Iceland – day 2

After a night in a quaint guest house, we hit the ground running in the Southern side of Iceland.  The grand plan was a glacial hike, but first we returned to the glacial lagoon (some of the group booked a boat tour); then we went to another glacial lagoon where you can also see the glacial ice clearer.  Then we headed to the glacier to hike – I was nervous as heck I wouldn’t be fit enough but it was A OK.  Not too much of a climb (or at least gentle enough!).  Then we raced the wind storm back, and won (I think!?) to Reykjavik.  Of course, it was something like 8.30pm when I checked into my new hostel, but it’s bright so it’s hard to notice the time! I need food.  A shower.  A load of washing.  And… Instead I’m charging devices and uploading photos.

So you have an idea of where we were (ha! So I have an idea too!)
Black sand beach (again – third time did charm) and ice bergs melting
Sunshine for our beachtime
The blue tones are for where oxygen has been squeezed out of the ice
Just amazing right?
Same glacial lagoon from yesterday’s photos, but morning light
A temporary jetty around where one of us found seals and dragged me to see (thankfully!)
Copulating seals and voyeuristic ducks
Seems obvious not to walk onto icebergs, but 25 people did in one tour group and a full scale rescue was needed, as these drift out to sea and move around the lagoon
A cairn at another glacier lagoon, two lagoons south of the main one. It’s better as you can see the glacier better and where ice bergs cleave off
Pre Glacial hike selfie – pure coincidence to have a matching beanie and scarf
Blue in

So water/rain ‘drills’ down into the glacier, and runs under the glacier
I was sort of disappointed there was so much black – I’d not accounted for the ash which is inherent in volcanic areas.
Supposedly a heap of movies have been filmed on these glaciers (third largest in the world, after South Pole and Greenland)

I wasn’t actually cold at all – between wind proof pants with leggings underneath, and a 11 year old Land’s End jacket rated to 35C, I was toasty warm, so much so, I unzipped on my way down when there was no wind or rain 🙂  It was a long drive back to the capital, but we have wifi on all the minibuses (and I have a charging block – looks like a stone… the ones I’ve seen all over Iceland!).  The bus trip home was filled with spotify music, uploading to Facebook and chatting online.  It was quite lovely – given it was blustery and rainy a large portion of the drive home.