Skaftafell-Nationalpark

The word for waterfall in Icelandic is ‘Foss’ - and today Loss (and I) got up close and personal to quite a few.

We slept in until 6.50am, got ready and headed down to our breakfast where we discovered a new favourite spread (see photos). As we headed out to the car Loss commented “I’d like to try to finish a little earlier than we did yesterday - if we could get in before 8.30pm that would be great”. Noted.
I approached the Suzuki with a little apprehension as I wasn’t confident of it’s ability to withstand a night out in the open. To my mild surprise, it started first try . . .

We left Fludir at 8.30am heading south to pick up the ‘circle road’ and to circumnavigate the island in an anticlockwise direction.
A bit like ourselves, the Suzuki decided to have a leisurely start to the day. It was quite happy in first gear and could sometimes hold its own in top gear on straight and level roads, but any of the gears in between were about as useful as a chocolate teapot.
By a combination of (a) turning off the airconditioning (b) working the accelerator in a fashion to try to avoid all those ‘in between gears’ and (c) tucking in to the slipstream of a cement truck - I was able to get us up to the legal limit of 90 kph after 22 minutes of driving.
All our driving to this point had been at sea level and we were trying to convince ourselves that this was a manageable situation until we had to climb our very first hill. As our speed gradually reduced to about jogging pace it was clear (a) (b) and (c) were not working so I had to employ option (d) as well which was to reduce onboard weight by asking Loss to get out and walk behind the car on such hills.
This seemed to be satisfactory - I was now able to hold a steady 10kpm up this gentle incline.
However, I shortly realised I had to do something more drastic when I glanced across to see Loss smiling and waving at me from the passenger seat of the combine harvester that had just overtaken me at the crest of the hill. That was simply too much to bear.
A phone call to ‘IceRentals 4x4’ a little later elicited a sympathetic response and they promised to send a replacement vehicle from Reykyavik (4.5 hours driving time) to meet us at our destination (Foss Hotel Glacier Lagoon) this evening. I was pleased but slightly sceptical at the same time.

Before our first ‘Foss’ was a brief visit to ‘The Lava Centre’ which had lots of interesting information about the whole geological profile of Iceland including a display showing how many earthquakes had happened in the last 48 hours! We then drove on 20 minutes to Seljaalandfoss which was spectacular. You are able to actually walk right in behind the falls and armed with all our waterproof gear we did exactly that.
10 minutes further walk up another pathway led to Gljufrabui waterfall which is hidden in a canyon. Again, we were pleased we had brought all the waterproof gear for this as the spray from the falls would have soaked us.

Next up was the DC3 plane wreck on the lava beach at Solheimasandur. The plane crashed there in 1973 and ‘simply had to be done’. I had assured Loss that it was a 40 minute round trip walk out from the car park. Unfortunately I had misread my own itinerary - it was 40 minutes each way. The silence on the return walk from the wreck to the car was only broken by the roar of the large 4WD bus zooming by that could transport you there but we were too stingy to pay the $80 for the privilege.

We then drove on 30 minutes to Skogafoss which is an absolutely beautiful waterfall. By this time the sun was shining and we got a great rainbow effect from the mist when viewing the falls from above.

Continuing on, we drove around past Eyjafjallojull volcano (the one that erupted for several months in 2010 and shut down aviation across much of Europe) to Fjadragljufur which is an amazing river canyon that has carved out a deep path in the landscape. We stopped here and had a little lunch in the car at 4.15pm before continuing on across the Eldhraun Lava field - the world’s largest lava field that just looks like a black, lunar landscape.
Although my itinerary called for us driving out onto the Renyisfjara black sand beach at Vik, we decided that it would be difficult to explain to IceRentals that they not only had to take the Suzuki back - but they also had to retrieve it from the beach because it had become bogged in a footprint that it was unable to climb out of . . .

We weren’t done for the day yet as we still had quite a bit of ground to cover - next on the list was one of Iceland’s gems - Skaftafell. This is a combination of bush walks, waterfalls and glaciers which attracts people from around the globe. I had planned that we would do one walk here this afternoon to see ‘The Black Falls’ and then another different one tomorrow morning to get up to the head of the glacier.
We parked and got ourselves ready and headed off at 6.25pm for our hike.
It had turned out to be a warm, clear day (albeit a little hazy from time to time) and given the uncertainty of the weather here, we thought we should make the most of the conditions. So we did both hikes this evening with a combined time of about 2hrs 15 minutes. The glacier looked fantastic in the evening sunshine and the haze dissipated significantly during our walk to reveal a memorable view of the region.

By the time we got back to the car and then drove another 25 minutes we were very pleased (and surprised) to see our replacement car waiting for us and then checked in to our accommodation at about 9.30pm. Dinner at 10.30pm. Finishing this blog right on midnight.
As we have already done tomorrow morning’s walk, I have promised Loss a sleep in after 30k steps and 24km walked today.
Her final words tonight? “And one more thing - if we could get in before 9.30pm tomorrow night, that would be great”. Noted.Read more