A gem of a day

Northern lights? Check.

About 40 minutes before we landed, I pulled the window shade up and took a look at the sky. And there they were. I pointed them out to Kim, and she responded that they were just clouds. I then explained that I have read a great deal in preparation for my trip and the milky white light stretching across the sky was a low activity, low KP index aurora borealis. Deb took a look and seemed to have more faith in my diagnosis. I kept an eye on them, as they came and went. About 20 minutes later, the pilot announced that the aurora borealis could be seen from the plane. Although it wasn’t the best show, I know the universe has something better in store later this week; regardless, another bucket list item gets checked!

We arrived in Keflavik earlier than scheduled, which was good for making our way through immigration and customs leisurely. I didn’t
sleep much on the plane, so my stress tolerance was low. Taking our time to grab our bags and a cup of coffee was welcomed. We boarded a bus with a million other people and made our way to the rental car agency. Our goal today was to drive about five or six hours to Diamond Beach, which is on the east side of the southern coast. Our vehicle is a Hyundai something, with studded snow tires and innumerable dents, dings, and “broke” parts. I was happy to know that there was little that I could do to the car to damage it further. Once we were loaded. I hopped in the car, stepped on the brake and turned the key. And turned the key. And turned the key. My sleep deprived mind ran through a short checklist of potential problems: Is the key turning all they way? Yes. Am I pressing down on the brake? Yes. Do I have it in Park? Oh. It’s a stick shift. Good job, brain. I had to dust off some old neural pathways to get the car in gear and moving down the road. Of course, the first time I came to a stop, I forgot to depress the clutch and killed it, but I wasn’t deterred. We were on a mission to get to Diamond Beach in the daylight.

The beginning of the drive was a bit challenging, given that we didn’t know where we were going and it was still pitch black at 8 in the morning. I’ll be interested to see what we missed in the dark, when we return to Reykjavík tomorrow. Once light began to dawn, Iceland revealed an impossibly diverse landscape. On one side of the highway were waterfalls tumbling down the cliffs, while the other side of the highway looked like the moon’s surface. We drove through a lave field, where thick moss had grown over the rock, resembling something like the Hobbit’s Middle Earth. As we got further east, the mountain tops were snowcapped and appeared to be covering green vegetation. It was beautiful, in all its contrasting ways. We were tempted to stop at several of the sites, but we will return that way tomorrow. As we got closer to our destination, the highway (it’s a two lane road, with a six inch shoulders) cut through the world’s largest glacial drainage delta. Why is this interesting? You have to transit part of it via a long, one lane bridge. There are several one lane bridges in this area. The bridges get washed out so often that it’s cheaper to replace a one lane bridge than a two lane bridge. It takes a little getting used to, but I managed to get over all of them, but one, without having to back up and yield the right of way.

We arrived at Diamond Beach, around 2pm. Although the temperature wasn’t bad, the wind from the Atlantic made it cold. We bundled up and walked out to the black sand beach. The shoreline is littered with icebergs that have washed up. Nearby, there are several enormous glaciers, making regular deposits. Some of the ice is so dense, it looks like a diamond, with incredible clarity through the whole chunk. Other pieces were dirty from the sand or eroded into odd shapes from their aquatic travels. Large pieces floated in the water, bobbing up and down with the incoming waves. We drove a short distance to Jökulsárlón glacial lagoon, where the icebergs it calves float aimlessly in the lagoon before reaching the sea. Seals surfaced and swan around the chunks of ice, while tourists snapped photos endlessly. Some of the icebergs were unbelievable colors of blue, ranging from light to intensely dark. The scenery was amazing, with the glacier in the background, originating somewhere far out of sight in the cloud shrouded mountains.

Once we were done there, we hustled down to Fjallsáflón (mountain-river lagoon) that is fed by the Fjallsjökull glacier. At 3:30, the sun was low in the sky and our daylight was coming to an end. The view of the mountains and the glacier reflected crisply in the placid lagoon, as a soft red glow grew over the western corner of the foothills. Our day ended there, leaving us with a dark drive back to Vik and an early retirement to catch up on some needed rest.Read more