Well, it was a totally amazing trip... fabulous weather and the most stupendous landscape I have ever seen. We headed back towards Vik, stopping at Mýrdalsjökul, the glacier that sits on top of Eyjafjallajökull, the volcano that erupted last year, and Katla, the one that caused the flood that stopped our trip a couple of weeks ago. All was quiet this time, and we drove back in on a rough dirt road to the base of the glacier. We were able to go up onto the ice a little way. Neither words nor photos come anywhere near describing the experience! The surface is gritty and gray, and your mind plays tricks with you—stone or ice, near or far—the scale and enormity of the ice is indescribable.
 |
| Standing in front of Mýrdalsjökul |
 |
| On top of the ice |
 |
| Looking into a glacial caldron |
 |
| ice surface |
From there we went through Vik and over the temporary bridge on to Kirkjubæjarklaustur. The land changes at every turn, passing through black sand, lava fields, meadows of lupine and angelica, remote farms and an occasional cluster of houses or a farm. Vast stretches are nothing but desert and gravel left by previous jökulhlaups that rush out from under the glaciers and sweep everything down to the sea. Arriving at Skaftafell National Park, our minds still reeling from our first glacier experience, we went on to another, Svínafellsjökull. It's a tongue of the giant glacier Vatnajökull, the world's largest glacier outside the Arctic areas, and just unimaginably huge.
 |
| Svínafellsjökull |
At the end of the day, a tiny house...
 |
| Tiny car, tiny house, big world... |
No comments:
Post a Comment