The last of the three tours went to the south coast of Iceland, all the way to the small town of Vik, and back. Took about 10 hours there and back. Like the tour up north the land down south is more rugged than the Golden Circle, but not as rugged as the north peninsula. This time the group was large again, so we went with a big tour bus.
There was a lot of driving involved. We did a couple stops here and there to take pictures, but for most of the morning we just drove.
We first went to the waterfall of Skógafoss. I’ve seen so many waterfalls on this trip so far, it’s staggering. It’s a nice fall though, and you can start on a long hike from there, but there was no time on the tour for that. So we just saw the waterfall. Again, there were clouds so no pictures of rainbows. I did not have a lot of luck catching rainbows at all.
After the visit to the falls we dropped off some people who had taken one of the optional packages of the trip, such as walking on a glacier or riding a snowmobile. Those are pricy options and I’ve walked on a glacier once before, so I decided to only do the regular tour.
Close to lunch time we stopped at the black sand beach of Reynisfjara. The sand is not actually sand, but volcanic ashes. After lunchtime (which consisted of eating a sandwich on the bus, since who has time to eat when there are places to see and explore?) we went to the other side of the beach, where we could see some lovely basalt formations and seaside caves. I remember these from one of the areas in Dragon Age: Inquisition, and there they were in real life. Spectacular and sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.
We then picked up the other passengers to go to Sólheimajökull glacier. The guide had pictures of the glacier from a few months back and it’s amazing/appalling to see how far the glacier had retreated since then. Back in New Zealand I walked across a glacier where the ice was clear and bluish. Here the ice was dark, and there were pyramid shaped heaps of black ashes all over the glacier. These heaps are formed by the melting ice leaving ash behind.
Our last stop was the Seljalandsfoss waterfall, where you could walk behind the waterfall. It’s nice to do and there wasn’t much wind so I didn’t really get wet while doing so, unlike at the Golden Waterfall. The ground is quite slick and muddy though, so I was glad for my good walking shoes. Again, the cloud cover was quite complete so no rainbows once again.
Another trip worth doing, but if you don’t have a lot of time or money I recommend doing the Golden Circle and Snaefellsnes before doing this tour.