We started out our day at 10:30 am. Temp. 14° and rainy. Since we've been here in Iceland the temperature has been consistent, between 12° and 16°. Rainy, windy, blue sky's, stormy sky's and sun. A saying in Iceland is "you don't like the weather? Wait five minutes!". It appears the weather changes consistently, but the temperature (at least at this time of year) remains within a few degrees. At night time the temperature drops to about 10°.
We were heading to Vik on the south coast today with the hope of finding some waterfalls and the black beach. We were not finding the signage the most user friendly. Macayle is getting much better at her mapping skills but the language is a bit tough to figure out. Very quickly we ended up on the right road and end up in some very high mountains. Some mountains have snow on them. We are still traveling in the moss covered lava rocks.
Our first stop was at Seljalandsfoss, we could see the falls from the road and turned in. The walk to the waterfall was quite short but the closer we got the more we could feel the mist. This waterfall drops 63 meters.
The real treat of this waterfall was the path that goes completely behind the falls and out the other side. There was less mist behind the falls than closer to the front.
Just down a short path was a couple more small waterfalls, caves and then the "hidden" waterfall.
The hidden waterfall, Gljufrabül, couldn't be seen from the road and even when close the full impact wasn't noticeable. To see the whole waterfall it was necessary to walk in the riverbed through a crevice in the rock.
We Then travelled on to Skógafoss. This was a much wider waterfall and the draw here was, the opportunity to walk to the top of the falls. Skógafoss is 15 meters wide and 62 meters high.The advantage of traveling with a 12 yr old is she wants to experience everything - so we walked to the top and back down.
The view from the bottom of the waterfall.
We then continued our drive towards Vik to reach Reynisfjara beach. This beach was a specific destination that Macayle had wanted to see, in particular for the black sands beach. The beach and view was breath taking. The black sands were very corse and in some areas it was more tiny pebbles than sand and other areas deep areas of smooth rocks.
I found the basalt formations and huge cave particularly interesting.
To add to the already amazing view point, there are magnificent spikes of rock rising to 66 meters out of the sea.
At the other end of the beach just as spectacular views were present. While we there a wedding party was being photographed. This area is a puffin nesting ground but we weren't fortunate enough to see any. Puffins usually leave land and go out to sea mid-August.
After we left the beach we went to Vik for lunch. 1,990isk ($20cad) for a small order of fish and chips at a 'order at the window' grill. On our way home we saw some interesting cabins and some small geothermal areas.
We spent the evening playing cards and watching Netflix. Tomorrow we are going ton þingvallavatn Provincial Park.
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