Expected weather: Hi 54F, Mostly Cloudy

Population: 138,875 (Reykjavik) / 248,000 (Region) / 352,721

Disclosure: I’m writing this on the plane going home two days after the fact.

Today we were to be picked up at our respective hotels around 8am for a small group tour of the South Coast with Your Day Tours. Their website described the tour as: Meet a driver at your hotel in Reykjavik, boarding a Mercedes Benz Sprinter minibus for a day of South Coast adventures. Since the van has Wi-Fi, you can keep up with emails or post to social media on the way to the first stops of the day, Seljalandsfoss and Skógafoss waterfalls. Keep your camera out for these—the two waterfalls are a favorite with photographers. Next, train your lens on Sólheimajökull glacier, part of the Mýrdalsjökull ice cap, and take in Eyjafjallajökull, a fiery volcano that’s capped with thick ice. Before returning to Reykjavik, make a stop for lunch at a local spot as well as Reynisfjara black-sand beach, where you might be lucky enough to spot one of Iceland’s Atlantic puffins.

You might be thinking, haven’t you seen enough waterfalls already?! No, not me! They are all so different, each is unique to the geological forces that helped to create it and this still changing landscape with its active volcanos. However, before our minibus arrived, I got a text from Paula that they had been picked up and that there were multiple minibuses, and we weren’t on their driver’s pickup list! Yikes! I don’t know why we didn’t think about there being more than one tour group. We thought we might meet up at the first comfort stop, and switch to their bus as they had a few extra seats, but our driver had multiple stops to make to pickup our group whereas theirs only had a couple of stops for his load, so they were leaving the first stop about the time we pulled in. Another lesson learned – confirm when booking separately that you will actually be booked together on the same tour. I think YDT had 5-6 South Coast tours running today. 

Anyway, it was another fantastic day with the weather cooperating the whole day, although I don’t think it broke 50F where we were. The order of visiting the sights on this trip can vary by driver preference and the weather. As mentioned in the description above, the first stops are the two waterfalls. However, Seljalandsfoss is in shadow in the morning, and it is also the one you can walk behind (and you will get wet), so our driver/guide, Anastasia, prefers to do it as the last stop on the return to Reykjavik. Sounded like a good plan to me!

Anastasia did a short stop for a view of Eyjafjallajökull which was nicknamed “E15” during 2010 by the media during coverage of its eruption which shut down air traffic over Northern Europe for weeks. Dave was working in Scotland at the time and had to come back to the US via Paris. While long Icelandic names look complicated, they are usually just compound words. In this case, “eyja” means island, “fjall” means mountain and “jökull” means glacier. Eyjafjallajökull is due west of the Westman Islands, thus it is the “mountain glacier by the islands”. I also posted a picture of it from the Westman Islands back in Note 20.

On we went to Skógafoss (forest waterfall, but there’s no forest!) which has morning sun and we were treated to multiple rainbows. Skógafoss has a drop of approximately 60 meters or 200 feet. This may be my favorite waterfall of the trip. Dave got a really nice video which I’ll try to get uploaded when we get back and edit this post to add the link. We chose to stay at the bottom of the falls for our pictures, but there were stairs to climb to the top and with the time allocated for the stop and our bad knees we decided not to push it. Several on our minibus did it and we probably would have 10-15 years ago!  

Our next stop was Sólheimajökull (house of the sun glacier). This glacier, though also emanating from the vast Vatnajökull ice cap, was totally different from the ones we saw a little further north in Note 19. It contained many solid black layers due to its closeness to the volcanos which have erupted in its vicinity. It also has a lagoon where it appeared people were kayaking. The icebergs in it weren’t nearly as large as the ones we saw at Fjallsárlón. It was a good 10–15-minute walk from the parking lot to the best photo spot near this glacier. Only 35 years ago the glacier face was at the parking lot.

Anastasia had been checking the weather forecast and it appeared that rain was trying to move into the area around our furthest destination, the southernmost town in Iceland, Vik, which is about 120 miles from Reykjavik. So, we hurried to the overlook of Vik by a small church. Vik means “bay”, but ironically, there is no harbor here! Vik gets 3-4 times the annual rainfall of Reykjavik and we could see it on the horizon. The primary industry for the town is tourism. It has many hotels and rentals frequented by those driving Iceland’s Ring Road 1 which loops around the island. As we were pulling out of that parking lot, we caught a glimpse of Keith and Paula exiting their minibus which had just arrived as their driver had done a different order of the stops from ours.

Now, it was time to head back towards Reykjavik and a couple of final stops. Just a short distance back down the road from Vik is Reynisfjara (Reynir’s Beach), the world-famous Black Sand Beach with its magnificent basalt columns, sea stacks, and sneaky waves. Invariably, despite all the warning signs, announcements by tour guides, and notices in tour books, to not turn your back to the ocean when near it there, people get caught by a “sneaky wave” and pulled into the severe undertow and drown. We didn’t get anywhere close to the water! We also had our lunch stop here. We had bought a couple of sandwiches at the grocery store across the street from our first comfort stop but ordered some French fries at the little café at Reynisfjara to go with them. I’ve really been impressed with the food overall, but my expectations here were pretty low. However, I think those were some of the best fries I’ve eaten in a long time! It was a huge order actually and for about $7.50, they were worth it! I did mention previously that everything is pretty expensive in Iceland, right? But it’s all relative to what you are used to. We have learned that potatoes are one of the big crops grown here – can’t remember if I previously noted that.  

Lunch done, we were headed to our final stop, Seljalandsfoss, when our driver was notified by another tour guide that there were some Icelandic horses just off a side road nearby. She asked if we wanted to stop and there was an immediate chorus of “yes”! They are so cute, gentle, powerful, and just my size! I want one! We’ve seen them all over the country, but especially here in the South of Iceland. Almost all of our guides have given information about them as well, so here’s my synopsis. They were brought to Iceland by the original Viking settlers over a thousand years ago. They were originally full-size horses, but in adapting to the climate here have grown smaller. They are not “ponies” and would be offended to be called such! I just say they are “under-tall”, like me! Icelandic horses also have two unique gaits, tölt (a four-beat lateral ambling gait) and skeið (a two-beat lateral gait where each side of the horse’s feet moves simultaneously also called “flying pace”), in addition to the usual 3 gaits of walk, trot, and canter/gallop. In the attempt to keep them pure and disease free, any Icelandic horses exported are not allowed to return to Iceland. Also, riders who go abroad are not allowed to bring any clothing or equipment used on horses outside of Iceland back into the country. They are serious about the health of their horses who reach an average age of 40!  

When we finished our horsing around, we were back on the road again for Seljalandsfoss which we’d previewed earlier in the morning as we drove by. Like Skógafoss, Seljalandsfoss also drops approximately 200 feet. I was on the fence about doing the climb to go up and behind the waterfall, but as this was the last stop of the day and our next to last day touring Iceland, I decided to go for it. I had on my waterproof/windproof fleece lined pants which have served me well on this trip, so I put them to one more test! I wasn’t sure if Dave was going to do it as he had not put on his rain pants, but he said he was going, so that settled it! Up we went! The initial climb is up a metal staircase, so after the first step up which was almost more than my short legs could do, that section was a breeze. Then suddenly, the line of people stopped moving as we had to carefully maneuver over a rocky up and down section. And, yes, we were quite near the waterfall at this point and the rocks were slippery and we were getting wet. I started to wonder what we’d gotten ourselves into, but then the pathway smoothed out on the section behind the waterfall. Dave tried to get a picture of me, but his glasses were so wet, he had trouble adjusting the settings on his phone camera, so it is what it is! We did catch a slight rainbow at this one, but nothing compared to Skógafoss this morning! As we came out the other side of the waterfall and back down, there was a path which skirted along the cliff, and we could see two additional smaller waterfalls. Our guide told us, however, that at the very end was her favorite waterfall of all hidden in a cave (Gljúfrabúi). We checked the distance (600m/2000ft) and the time until we needed to be back on the minibus though and decided against it – I just can’t walk that fast unfortunately. 

After a very long day, I think most of us were napping on the return to Reykjavik. We’d seen a lot and learned a lot from our guide, Anastasia. Fortunately, we were the first drop-off arriving back at our hotel a little before 7 – almost 11 hours (10-11 hours is the expected time for this tour). Keith and Paula had gotten back an hour earlier, and we’d already texted them to go ahead with their evening as we were just going to bust the wallet and eat at our hotel restaurant and crash.

A little after 10pm, I got a text containing two pictures from Paula. At first, I thought she was pulling my leg, but I checked the geotag and the pics were taken from their hotel location and her phone model. By the time I noticed the text and threw on warm clothes to go look they were gone, but she said I could share her pics here.

Tomorrow is our Golden Circle tour, also with Your Day Tours. Keith and Paula had their driver contact the YDT office today to make sure we are all put on the same minibus for tomorrow, so fingers crossed that we are with our friends as planned for one final day of touring this interesting island.