Sunday, July 25
We got off to a decent start…in light rain. The sunny afternoon in Landmannalaugar proved to be a brief interval.
Route One, AKA the ring road, is a two lane affair like most of the paved roads we’ve been on, though it has somewhat wider lanes and a bit of a shoulder.
Our first stop was at the Lava Center in Hvollsvöllur. This proved to be an ultra modern exhibition that tells you all you want to know about volcanos. The tour starts with an impressive but unsettling film with incredible footage of eruptions. The exhibits, many of them interactive, explain how volcanos work, how Iceland was formed on top of an enormous magma chamber, and how Iceland’s major volcanos have “performed” in this century. We both gave the center high marks.
When we emerged, it was raining harder…and it soon became torrential. At our next stop, at Seljalandsfoss, waterfalls spill over a cliff into a series of pools. Much of this section of the south coast has cliffs on the north side of the ring road. During the last period of global warming, the sea flowed right to the base of the cliffs and the waterfalls spilled into the ocean.
To see the falls we had to really suit up, in waterproofs from tip to tail.
This picture gives you an idea of Icelandic tourism, or at least Icelandic tourism within reach of day trippers from Reykjavik. This is the crowd on a day in a pandemic year that saw torrential showers. Imagine a sunny day in a year with two million visitors!
The main fall is unique in Iceland because it allows visitors to walk behind it, but that was extremely dangerous because of the rain.
From the main fall a short path leads to the smaller Gljufrabui falls, which is actually more interesting. The lower two thirds of the fall are hidden by a rock wall. One can enter the chamber that holds the pool through a narrow fissure in the rock.
The chamber itself is very beautiful. As you can see, Sue was just adding to her drenching.
By the time we returned to the car, the whole coast was totally socked in, and we retreated to our hotel. Hotel Uni is set on a plain between the cliffs and the sea. We are told that, in clear weather, we would have a magnificent view onto the Myrdalsjökull glacier. Unfortunately, that was pretty hard to imagine today.
By late afternoon the clouds had lifted enough to reveal the tops of the cliffs as we looked inland. We drove east to have a look at the Dyrhólaey promontory, an unusual raised “island” in the sea that had been created by an underwater volcanic eruption.
There are fine views from along the cliffs back toward Vik…
And out to sea.
We skedaddled back to the hotel for dinner and retired…hoping for some sun tomorrow afternoon. Stay tuned.