We woke up well rested and ready to go on our first full day tour. We were a bit disappointed with the rainy weather though. It is hard to get great pictures with poor lighting and constantly trying to keep your lenses dry. I decided to stick with the iPhone only, and not bother with my Sony a1. It was ultimately a smart choice. Our guide Ivar arrived at 9am and we were on our way. We booked a private guide with an awesome vehicle. It was a Toyota Highlander that has been modified to traverse the harsh terrain of Iceland. The tires can be inflated and deflated from inside the vehicle to drive across snow, glaciers, and off roading. Ivar said it was about $180,000.
Ivar told us not to worry about the rain, since we were going to be wet either way. We are visiting waterfalls today! We headed South on the ring road to our first stop, Seljalandsfoss waterfall. Seljalandsfoss is 197 feet tall and can be walked behind, without getting wet (mostly). Ivar gave us some additional water proof clothing. I got lucky with just some black pants, however my wife got some very bright blue pants that were far too large for her. It was quite funny to watch her run through the falls in them.
Once we completed the run through the waterfall, we headed just down the road to Gljúfrabúi. This was really impressive. It reminded me of the Batcave. The waterfall was inside the rocks. We carefully walked up the stream into the waterfall. It was amazing.
The next waterfall we will see is Skógafoss. It is one of the largest waterfalls in Iceland. It has a width of 82 feet and a drop of 200 ft. Our guide told us we can view the falls from the bottom or top. It is 527 steps to the top of the falls. Obviously we opted to view the falls from below. We immediately thought of all the stairs climbed when we were in Denver and wanted nothing to do with it.
Next up was Reynisfjara, a Black Sand Beach. It is located just next to the small town of Vik. At this point, it was very windy, rainy, and cold. We powered through it and had our beach day. The rock formations were unlike anything we have ever seen.
We even drove up to an overlook to see the beach and Elephant Rock. Can you see the Elephant?
It was so windy at the top, the rain was hurting my face. We quickly looked around and made our way back to the shelter of our vehicle. We headed into the town of Vik for lunch. We stopped at Sudar Vik. Our guide and my wife had the seafood soup and I had the Arctic Char, my new favorite fish. It is a cross between a Salmon and a Trout. The food here was excellent, however I had some sticker shock. It was around $110 for lunch!
Now that we were a little less wet and had some energy, we made our way to Sólheimajökull glacier. It is located near Vik between the volcanoes Katla and Eyjafjallajökull. Eyjafjallajökull last erupted in 2010 causing massive disruptions to air travel in Europe. We quickly hiked down the path to the glacier.
At this point, the tour was almost over. We started heading back toward Hella, the town where our hotel is. We stopped along the way at the Lava Center to watch a short video about Iceland Volcanic history. We then toured the exhibit which was interactive and showed various samples of volcanic rock.
We arrived back at Hotel Ranga around 5 pm. We got cleaned up, rested a bit then had dinner. Another night of no Aurora wake up calls.
