Iceland in 5 days-Day 4

Highlight of the day was the Glacier lagoon tour. We read that we could see the icebergs up-close but didn’t know that there was a  tour which could take us right into the middle of it. We went for the Glacier lagoon tour in the Jokursarlon lagoon and it was such a memorable experience in the Iceland trip.

If you  reached here and it doesn’t make sense, it is part 4 of the five part series of Iceland in 5 days. Click here for Day 1

Iceland in 5 days-Day 4

The hot water at Stöðvarfjörður where we stayed was not having the sulphur smell and we were glad about it. As we checked with the lady of the house where we were staying, she mentioned about how the south-east was not geologically active and they had to depend on electricity to warm their home and that was pretty expensive. They would prefer to have  hot water and the smell rather than paying a lot for electricity. The sulphur in the water could make the hair sticky after a bath and a hair conditioner is a must have in Iceland. We didn’t have that in the packing list to Iceland. Lessons Learned!!

Day 4 would see us visiting the fishing village of Djúpivogur and Hofn . But I have to say the highlight of the day was the Glacier lagoon tour. We read that we could see the icebergs up-close but didn’t know that there is  tour which could take us right into the middle of it. We went for the Glacier lagoon tour a the Jokursarlon lagoon and it was such a memorable experience. The nice guide , who explained about the lagoon and its 1000 year old ice , also gave us an opportunity to taste the 1000 year old piece of ice which had just broken of the glacier.

Next up along the road was the sight of these iceberg which had washed up on the shores next to where glacier opens up to the ocean. The white coloured pieces of ice , with the black sandy beaches of the south as the backdrop was a sight not to miss indeed.

Up next was a short trek to the smaller glacier in the Vatnajokull Glacier, a few photographs later , we were on the road yet again this time to the Skaftafell Camping area where we were planning to camp. We were there early and decided to spend some time in the information center there. We came to know about the Glacier treks which would last a whole day or more and starts in the morning.  We also saw some details about the live volcanoes spitting lava , which were high up in the national park and could be driven to but, since we were short of time, we had to keep ourselves  from enrolling to one of those.  I might come back for it one day after many years , at least I hope so. After seeing a short video about the area in the information center we headed west along route 1

The video we saw explained about the flash floods or the glacial floods which was  caused by the melting of ice atop the volcanoes. In 1996 there was similar flash flood and it was so immediate and devastating that it washed away many roads and bridges along the south of Iceland. Why I mentioned this is because ,  when we passed through those long bridges over the area where the glacial water from the mountains flow down into the sea( An example is the bridge of Skeiðarársandur  which was washed away in 1996) we could see the remains of the bridges downriver when passing the bridge.

We drove down to the village of Vik , where we would camp for the day as the weather was nice and not windy. After we set up camp at Vik Camping which is in the center of the village , we went out to visit the black sandy beaches , where to the West you could see the rock formations in the sea close to the beach .The other side of the mountain have the Basalt rock caves which we would venture into the next day

Here is our route for Day 4

Here is Day 5       Here is Day 3