Until I go back, this will probably be my last post about my road trip around Iceland (back in February of this year). At the bottom of this post I have linked all the relevant posts from day 1 till now (if you're interested).
It's truly an amazing place and I will definitely be going back at some point. I just don't know when yet (maybe my steemit account might pay for the trip back one day!).
This post is about our last few hours, from the glacier lake at Jokulsarlon to Reykjavik...
The weather was stormy today, as you can probably tell from my previous Iceland post (see below for links). Intermittent rain showers followed us for the whole morning and only later started to clear. As we left behind the glacier lake, and followed Road 1 heading West, we had the coast to our left and the mountains to our right...
...occasionally we caught a glimpse of part of the enormous glacier that is Vatnajokull...
...It's vatnajokull
After a while the vistas began to open up to our left, with an enormous flood plain that took a couple of hours to drive past!! This is where the meltwater from the glacier heads out to sea, and all we could see for miles was black ash and water...
To our right, lots of waterfalls...
Then we hit the lava fields. These are fantastical landscapes - flat and strewn with huge rocks, and piles of laval forms covered in mosses and lichens and other strange plants...This landscape also stretched for miles...
...or a lush green carpet...
Nearing the end of our journey, we still had time for two last Icelandic gems...Skogafoss and Seljalandfoss.
Skogafoss is a 60m tall waterfall that produces a fine mist with a rainbow always to be seen when the sun is out. We were lucky to get a break in the weather and a beautiful sunny interlude when we got there and did see a double rainbow. However, arriving here was a bit of a shock...tourists! Hundreds of them! Being relatively close to Reykjavik, it attracts lots of day trippers...a sight we'd grown unaccustomed to over the last couple of days. This was only a minor complaint as the waterfall itself was breathtaking and quickly took your mind away from the crowds.
The challenge here was to get a photo with
the least amount of people I could...
Me, on the edge of the drop...
The obligatory tourist shot at the top with
Sandy...both wrapped up against the cold breeze
A short drive further west along Road 1 brings you to Seljalandfoss, another 60m waterfall, but with a smaller volume of water flowing over it...and fewer tourists too. In summer you can walk behind the falls into a small cave but ice made this too treacherous in winter and this part was cordoned off.
Interesting ice formations were all around the falls
Our last few miles of road were spent in quiet contemplation of the journey we'd taken and the sights we'd seen. A small storm was brewing overhead and, in the distance, sun lit up a church and farm as we drove towards Reykjavik, and our flight home...
My previous posts about this trip:
Day 1, part 1 - Iceland road trip
Day 1, part 2 -Hot springs
Day 1, part 3 - The face of the great Geysir
Day 1, part 4 - Iceland in February
Day 2 - Storms, sunsets and a whale tail
Day 3, part 1 - Drowned gods, fire and ice
Day 3, part 2 - Mountains, coasts and lights in the sky
Day 4 - Creatures and storms
Day 5, part 1 - Diamonds and glaciers