After a comfortable night at a hotel we would stay at again if the opportunity arose, today we headed back to Hella. The plan was to stop along the way at some of the places we had to drive by yesterday in order to get to the ice lagoon while there was still daylight.
We awoke to rain again, or still, depending on perspective. When we left the hotel it was raining hard enough to cause rain-streaking on the bus windows too thick to take pictures. This was frustrating because I was seated on the same side of the bus as yesterday so had anticipated seeing scenery and getting pictures that I had missed yesterday going the opposite direction.
A more substantive concern was the potential impact that the rain was having on the numerous rivers spanned by bridges along our route. Rain falling on a glacier causes melting, so two inches of rain - the forecast and by itself a large amount of water - would result in a much larger volume of water making its way into those rivers. In a worst-case situation, Route 1 could become impassable. As our guide noted, Iceland does not have a complex network of roads - i.e. we might not have an alternate route. There was no alarm when we set out, but there was the potential that deteriorating conditions might necessitate by-passing some of today's stops. Conditions might also inhibit getting into some of the places we were scheduled to visit.
Our first stop was at Skaftafell National Park. We hiked about a kilometer to get a closer view of the glacier Skaftafellsjökull (a spur of the Vatnajökull ice cap). Some of our group chose to hike further to get even closer. My sciatica was kicking my butt, so I opted to take a short trail that let me get higher, giving me a good view of the foot of the glacier and sufficient distance for a wider angle shot.
On our way back to the bus, this young lady gave me a great photo-op. Her boyfriend was taking her picture. I saw the first attempt and got my camera into position in time to capture her second jump.
Throughout our hike it rained. While not warm, neither was the temperature cold. Most of us were overdressed for hiking. By the end of the hike anything not fully protected by rain gear was soaked from the outside in. Anything properly protected was damp from the inside out. As we rolled down the road to our next destination there was rainwear and various garments hanging from every practical place inside the bus.
We rolled on westward in the rain, stopping at a huge moss-covered lava field. The eruption of the Laki volcano that produced the lava field occurred in 1783/1784. It was by all measures a catastrophe that stretched far beyond Iceland. To quote from Wikipedia, "...clouds of poisonous hydrofluoric acid and sulfur dioxide compounds killed over 50% of Iceland's livestock population, leading to a famine which then killed approximately 25% of the island's human population." and "The Laki eruption and its aftermath caused a drop in global temperatures, as sulfur dioxide was spewed into the Northern Hemisphere. This caused crop failures in Europe and may have caused droughts in India. The eruption has been estimated to have killed over six million people globally, making it the deadliest in historical times."
We drove down the east side of Dyrhólaey, which was an island but became a peninsula, to see the Atlantic Ocean raging against the rocks. Wet and windy.
We stopped in Vik for lunch, eating at a slightly sketchy place with great lamb goulash. It was next door to the wool factory we had stopped at eastbound. Once again we looked at the factory, wandered around the gift shop and wondered about the car choreography taking place at the church on the hill, this time with headlights on.
Back on the road, we passed several traditional Icelandic turf huts built into the side of a cliff or hill.
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| hut is in lower left quadrant of picture |
We only had one stop left on today's itinerary - Seljalandsfoss. This was a beautiful waterfall, even in the rain. We could walk behind it, and we did.
We rolled into Hella, arriving at the Hella Hotel about 5:45. We returned to Hotel Rangà for another tasty dinner, although that event ran a bit long. We again wished we were staying there.
In the lobby of Hotel Rangà was a stuffed polar bear. We'd seen it on our last visit, but I got a picture of it this time. It stood about nine feet tall.
Polar bears are not native to Iceland. Once in a while one shows up. Because a polar bear will aggressively stalk and attack any living thing including a human, they are so dangerous that they are shot on sight.
Back at our hotel, it was promptly off to bed, listening to the wind-driven rain hitting our window. There was no expectation of being awoken to see Northern Lights.
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