We left our remote locale today and headed northeast to the eastern region of Iceland (Iceland has 7 regions). We began the day with one of the most amazing things we have done in Iceland, which also happens to be the reason for the name of this post (as regular readers know, the title is a number when I have a religious experience that day!) We took a tour of Jokulsarlon Glacier Lagoon in a zodiac boat. It was absolutely incredible. We were thinking about doing the tour in a kayak instead and, while I love to kayak, I am glad we didn’t do this. The kayak tours do get to go around the ice bergs, but they are not able to get near the face of the glacier itself. While it doesn’t look nearly this far, the face of the glacier is 5 miles from the shore where you get on the boat (very sad when you think of the environmental side of this and our prior discussion of staring climate change in the face in Iceland). It would take far too long for the kayaks to get there. The zodiac boats can get quite close to the face of the glacier, though certainly still a safe distance away given the frequency of icebergs detaching from the glacier and crashing into the lake. (Our guide did tell us that they recently extended the length of tour by 15 minutes because of the increased time it takes to get to the glacier as it recedes.)
Our tour guide, Simon, was excellent. He was great with kids and questions, funny, and incredibly knowledgeable. He took us around many icebergs explaining why some ice is blue and some isn’t (largely due to being under water), explaining how icebergs flip, telling us some Icelandic folklore (these trolls are not the Justin Timberlake kind!), talking about the animals in the lagoon, and so much more. We got to see two seals, one floating on an iceberg, and one on a large rock formation in the lagoon, as well as ducks and seabirds. We also got to witness numerous pieces of the glacier detach and fall into the lagoon. One of them was quite large and made a thunderous sound. Simon explained that Iceland rarely gets thunder, but the glaciers make up for it with the detaching icebergs. (I caught a video of the splash, but didn’t actually get the iceberg detaching or crashing into the water.) The size, color, grandeur, and beauty of the glacier, at such close proximity, took my breathe away! Being on the lagoon for such an amount of time makes you feel like you are right inside of an immense and powerful natural process. We all greatly enjoyed the ride, the icebergs, the glacier, the wildlife, and the morning! (Also, after Simon pulled a couple of small icebergs from the lagoon to show us, Ezra proudly pulled up a tiny one of his own 🙂
As we rode east, how could we not include at least one foss?!? We decided to stop at Skutafoss, a smaller, but lovely waterfall. One of the reasons we chose Skutafoss in particular was that it gave Ezra and Naomi the opportunity to climb around on the rocks and go behind another waterfall (this one way less crowded than Seljalandsfoss). Both of them had a fun time doing this! (And before we got there, we got to drive through over first tunnel in Iceland that went directly through a mountain!)
Once done with Skutafoss, we continued east to our destination of Egilstaddir. The ride was pretty wild as we got hit with our first major bout of dense and low fog while also driving on a gravel road. We had to get kind of serious with the kids about being quiet so we could concentrate on the more difficult level of driving, but got out fine and, in a way, enjoyed this eerie experience. One of the strangest things about the east of Iceland is that is was at least 10 degrees warmer than the rest of the country and looked more like the Pacific Northwest, covered in green, including alpine forests. We had not seen topography like this anywhere else in Iceland so far. It was beautiful and reconnected us to the wonder that is the incredibly varied geological realities of Iceland!
See you on the next mountain!
July 12 – Total Steps 9,078 (Little Elevation)
