Iceland - Part 3

28 Dec 2015 . category: Travel . Comments
#Iceland

Day 3: Southern Iceland

Simply stated, this day was probably the hightlight of our Iceland trip. First, we found the church on the cover of our Frommer’s guidebook, which we had been looking for since our arrival. The book’s cover credit unhelpfully didn’t actually give its exact location, and we had several false alarms at very similar looking churches. But this was the day we finally found it!

We also visited the black pebble beach at Iceland’s southern tip: Reynisfjara, and reflected on the fact that many of our friends were probably, at that moment, sitting on actually warm beaches. But oh well, the beach itself and the surrounding geological formations were beautiful nonetheless.

Sometime during the day, we also stopped off at a supermarket…less exorbitantly expensive than the one we had previously frequented, but still pretty pricey. More sandwich making supplies…much excite! (We had decided to eat PB&J sandwiches for lunches as we were often and the road and wanted to cut costs). I was designated sandwich maker as Aaron was the driver. Unfortunately, I struggled a bit this day, getting peanut butter on my camera lens.

Next came the true highlight of the day: Jokulsarlon, a glacial lagoon where chunks of ice break off into stunningly blue water (yay for global warming?). Walking up over the morraine to be greeted by the lake’s majesty was really the natural beauty highlight of the trip.

We were even able to clamber up onto some of the floating pieces of ice. And later saw some seals in the lake!

But that wasn’t the end of our wildlife sightings - as we were driving home for the day we glimpsed a herd of reindeer off the side of the road! So of course we had to pull over and again run around the Icelandic wilderness, photographing them from behind rocky outcroppings. Unfortunately, we weren’t the best at stalking wildlife, scaring them away at one point.

We ended the night in Djupivogur with a meal of fish and chips that greatly disappointed Aaron. We attempted to drink the brandy we had tried so hard to acquire (we went to three different duty free stores before finding the one for arrivals) but found that it was positively disgusting. And unfortunately, this night was a failure for the Northern Lights, even though we had a great view of the sky from our room.

Other sites seen: Skaftafell/Vatnajokull, Klauster (another waterfall!), and random gorges whose name I’ve forgotten.

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