Day 5 & 6 Traveling the Southern ring road from Seyoisfjorour to Vik

Since the sun never sets we were up early and hit the gravel road to find a couple of water falls that a Scotsman told us about at dinner the night before. We almost turned around because the road wasn’t the best but we eventually found them and was so glad we did. Peaceful, beautiful setting! 

Enjoy this video of the waterfall! 

After spending about an hour hiking around we set out to reach our destination for the evening, Hofn, which sits on the edge of Vatnajokull glacier, the largest glacier in Iceland and it's also the largest glacier mass in Europe. It covers an area of roughly between 8100 sq. km and 8300 sq. km, and it's about 1000m thick at its thickest point. In order to get there we had to zigzag along the coast in and out of fjords covered in fog. It was a beautful drive. 

There were many fish hatcheries along the way

The fog was beautiful rolling in 

Adding a stone to a Cairn with the purpose of bringing good luck. 

Many reindeer in these parts

The coast is beautiful 

After a full day of driving with many stops along the way, we finally arrived to Hofn. Our hotel, we’ll use that term loosely,  it was located on an old farm in a container type building. Very modern and cozy!  Lots of sheep bleating and little lambs running about. We had the most beautiful view of the Skaftafell Glacier. 

Andrea enjoys eating lamb but after watching these little ones play has reconsidered her food choices

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An old barn on the property. 

Chilling out watching the glacier move. 

An abandoned tractor on our walk around the farm.

After a good nights sleep and wake up call of sheep bleating outside our door, we enjoyed the hotels buffet breakfast consisting of meats, cheeses, hard boiled eggs, yogurt and croissants  and a white milky juice that  neither one of us could determine what it was. Water and coffee was our friend. Our destination for the evening was Vik, with many planned hiking and viewing stops along the way. 

Andrea woke up at 3am to this view. Sunrise or sunset? 

Many of the beaches have black sand, remnants of Volcanic ash. 

 One of the stops was, Jokulsarlon Glacier Lagoon. Its still blue waters are dotted with icebergs from the surrounding glacier. The glacier lagoon flows thru a narrow waterway into the Atlantic Ocean leaving chunks of ice on the black sand beach. It was amazing! 

After touring the lagoon, we made our way over to the Atlantic side where Andrea held an iceberg in her hands and Bill licked one. 

Icebergs floating in the Atlantic. 

No, it did not stick to his tongue. 

Chunks of icebergs were scattered  all over the beach. 

After a quick stop at a waterfall, our next planned stop was Fjadrargljufur Canyon. The canyon has steep walls and winding water and is up to 100m deep and 2 kilometers long. Its origins date back to the ice age, about 2 million years ago. It was created by progressive erosion by flowing waters from glaciers. It was about a two mile hike and Bill’s new knee carried him the whole way! Fun fact, in 2019 they closed the canyon due to an overwhelming amount of visitors after Justin Bieber filmed his music video “I’ll Show You” here. Yes, we googled it and it’s actually filmed all over Iceland. Lots of sites we have seen. 

This waterfall was on private property but they allowed you to admire it from afar. 

Hiking up to the canyon overlook. 

The canyon 

The water was so blue and the walls were very steep. 

Bill braved one of the overlooks. 

View from the bottom of the canyon 

We continued on to Vik. A sweet little community on the coast. We bought provisions for the next day, a 12 pack of beer and a bottle of wine which cost $86. Using her conversion calculator Andrea quickly realized we were double charged for the beer, the clerk rang up 24 and not 12 cans. So after much ado, she credited back a 12 pack. No problem, except buying ice. You would think in Iceland there would be a lot of ice! Well, it’s usually warm right now so the campers are swarming the countryside and buying up bags of ice like gold. Andrea finally talked a restaurant owner into filling up a plastic bag full of ice from their restaurant so we could chill down our beer. Andrea tried to pay for it but the owner said “water is free in Iceland”! So, we opened the 12 pack to fill the cooler and realize we bought 16 ounce cans of beer rather than 10 ounce ergo the double charge. Oops. 

High up on the hill in Vik was this pretty church. The views from here were amazing! It’s one of the most photographed churches in Iceland. Great day today!