Waterfalls!
Today's theme: water, water, water!
After our simple, but tasty breakfast at the guesthouse, we started our day by going to the Lava Center. It’s a fairly small museum, but it discusses how volcanoes formed the country of Iceland, as well as the numerous large volcanic eruptions this country has experienced over the past century. It even includes information about Fagradalsfjall, which is the volcano that is currently erupting.
Minimalist outside, cool displays inside!
We then headed off to the first of many waterfalls, Seljalandfoss. After driving for 15 minutes, we both looked ahead to the left and saw a large waterfall from the highway. And a few minutes later, we were in the parking lot in front of it.
One of the cool things about this waterfall is that you can walk behind it. Although if you do, be warned that force of the water hitting the lake underneath, combined with the wind, will probably cause you to get a little wet. But being able to walk behind the waterfall and seeing the valley behind it was amazing.
About 750m from Seljalandfoss was another waterfall, Gljufrabui.
This was the waterfall that the host of our guesthouse recommended, and we’re happy we went. The waterfall falls into a tall grotto, so it was cool to walk into the cave and experiencing the sheer force of the water falling from above, and hearing it echo in the space.
So that was two waterfalls so far, and then we were on to the next one, Skogafoss. But first, we wanted lunch, so we stopped by this adorable fish and chips cart that was near Skogafoss:
I think the owners just parked the camper van in front of the yard of their house, but it was really cute. And the food, with the dipping sauces was a nice way to give us some energy for Skogafoss.
A short drive away, we arrived at the large parking lot for Skogafoss, and you could easily see it from afar:
The waterfall caused a perpetual mist at the bottom, which created a beautiful rainbow. We were amazed at the amount of water that continually fell from the cliff above. Unfortunately for us, we couldn’t walk behind this waterfall, but it would have been cool if we could.
There was a long staircase next to the waterfall that led to a viewing platform about 2/3 of the way up, but we didn’t think we’d see much from up there, so we skipped it and headed off to the Skogar Museum. The main reason we went was because they had replicas of traditional Icelandic turf houses:
They even had a little Icelandic elf village:
The rest of the museum housed what seemed to be a random assortment of old Icelandic items, from old ship parts to waaaaay too many old Nokia phones. It was amusing, but very odd.
Next to the museum is the path to the final waterfall that we would see today, Kvernufoss. Unlike the other waterfalls, you need to walk about 15-20 minutes to get there, but the walk is easy. But because of this, it’s less visited than the other waterfalls, but it was still worth seeing. And you could walk behind it:
And if you’re lucky, you’ll find a dinosaur there too:
Finally, we made our way to sólheimajökull, a large glacier. So after spending the entire day seeing water in liquid form, we went to see it in a large solid form. I was expecting something like that from Alaska, large glacial cliffs coming out of the water, but this one was like a large, frozen hill that ends down in a lake. Also, it was covered in some type of black soot. I think it’s tephra from nearby volcanic eruptions, but I’m not sure. Still, it was cool to see a glacier up close:
After a long day of seeing large bodies of water in various forms, we decided to go back to the guesthouse. On the long driveway to the home, some of the horses on the property were grazing but the fence, so we stopped the car to say hi. Soon, a few others came over to say hi to us. It was cute, but we had to leave so that we could find dinner before everything closed.
Tomorrow, we continue heading east, seeing where Daenerys landed at Eastwatch.