We woke up to beautiful weather today. The first order of business is to go on more hikes to see more glaciers! Skaftafell Glacier was only a 15-minute hike from our campsite so that was where we decided to go first. Skaftafell Nature Reserve is known for its glorious hiking trails, often called a hiking paradise.
Just a few minutes drive away was another glacier, Svínafellsjökull. Svínafellsjökull is an outlet glacier of Vatnajokull, the largest ice cap in Europe. Svínafellsjökull is made up of many sharp ridges that, while not possible to climb on, are beautiful to behold. It’s also the perfect place to get close to a glacier tongue. It’s so interesting to be able to hear the ice breaking apart and forming hundreds of cracks and stacks of an endless formation, while not being able to see any movement.
Svínafellsjökull glacier has also gained fame as an attraction after this fascinating site was selected as a location for Game of Thrones season seven to represent the “North of the wall”. You might also recognize it from the movie Interstellar as it was where the ice planet was filmed and it was featured strongly in posters and trailer scenes showing McConaughey walking across its hostile, wintery terrain.
After hiking and taking in the views of the glacier, it was time for us to move on to our next destination which was an hour and a half away. We stopped for some lunch at an N1 gas station along the road.
After the refuel, we quickly arrived at Fjaðrárgljúfur, a deep & winding river canyon over 2 million years old! Parts of the canyon are up to 100 m deep and the canyon itself is over 2 kilometers long. The Fjaðrárgljúfur canyon was created by progressive erosion by flowing water from glaciers through the rocks. A the end of the hike, you are greeted by the Mögárfoss waterfall.
Our next and last destination of the day was the world-famous black-sand beach, Reynisfjara, located just beside the small fishing village of Vík. It is commonly considered one of the ten most beautiful non-tropical beaches in the world.
Tonight we ended up sleeping at Skogafoss Camping, which was a no-frills parking spot near Skogafoss Waterfall. We arrived super late so no pictures 🙁
Good night world.
As always, here’s our route for day 9: