Vik and the South Coast of Iceland
We awoke to warmer weather, but rain, on our third day in Iceland. We had planned to take a trip down the South Coast about 2.5 hours to Vik, a small tourist town. Since it wasn’t snow and we knew the roads would be clear, we took off anyway.
We drove for about 2 hours before we stopped at the first waterfall of the day, or really series of waterfalls, at Seljalandsfoss.
Seljalandsfoss is fed by the Eyjafjallajökull glacier, that sits on the Eyjafjallajökull (Ay-Ah-Fet-Lay-Oh-Kull, as far as I can tell) volcano. This was the same volcano that caused so many travel issues back in 2010, including forcing me to extend my stay in Iceland for a day because of the ash cloud (no complaints here!)
When I first visited Seljalandsfoss, I only saw the one waterfall and was pleased to discover that the tourist path had been extended to the northwest to see more of the adjacent, smaller falls. One that was particularly memorable was at the end of the path, hidden inside of a cave, called Gljúfrabúi waterfall. You had to walk up the river and through a crevasse into a cave, where the water thundered down with such force that we got absolutely soaked — but it was beautiful and SO worth it!
Next, we made our way to the black sand beach, called Reynisfjara. There is a canteen there for tourists, and we made use of it as the nearby town of Vik is rather small with few options, and we were very hungry. We had a tasty lamb stew and tried to dry off as best we could before heading out to Reynisfjara.
The beach is very popular with tourists, but we were warned (both by our friends and many, many posted signs) that it is very dangerous. The waves are large and crashing, and they’re unpredictable. Every handful of waves, a larger one rolls in and comes much further up the beach. Just a few days before we arrived, a woman and her son were swept out into the rip current. They were both rescued but she later passed away in the hospital.
Reynisfjara is also lined with stunning, organ-pipe cliffs, giving this dark beach an otherworldly feel.
We then drove into the town of Vik to do a little souvenir shopping. The whole area was pretty crowded with tourists, so we weren’t there long, but I did snap a photo of this church in the rainy mist.
Our friend Harpa had told us about Dyrhólaey peninsula, about 5KM up the coast from the black beach. She said the views were stunning in the summer, but unfortunately the weather was not on our side. We made our way up anyway, and experienced some of the wildest weather Iceland had yet thrown at us.
We drove up a very windy, bumpy dirt road to get to the top of Dyrhólaey, where there is a lighthouse and views on either side. Even though the clouds were fully on top of us, we were able to get the sense of what this area might look like in the sunshine.
Between Dyrhólaey and Reynisfjara is another peninsula with a hole in the bottom, creating an archway. We couldn’t figure out how to get there, nor did we really want to in the crazy wind and weather, so we settled for seeing it from the top of Dyrhólaey. Beyond the archway is Reynisfjara, where we were earlier. On a clear day, we’d have been able to see the beach as well.
We finally decided we were soaked enough, and climbed back in the car to head to our final stop — Skógafoss waterfall.
To reach Skógafoss, you have to walk up the riverbed to the falls. This was even bigger than any of the falls we had seen earlier that day, and was throwing so much mist that we stayed a ways back. You could still hear the thundering, and on a warm, clear day we would have loved to get closer. At this point, we were soaked through and very cold, so we took a quick peek at Skógafoss and then headed back to Reykjavik for a shower and a quick dinner before we went back out on our re-booked Northern Lights Tour (attempt #3). More on that tomorrow :)
