Iceland Interlude: Over, Under, and Behind Waterfalls.

Thursday morning we woke to mostly cloudy skies, but we saw a few patches of blue sky so we had hope that maybe the day would not be all gray. Today we would be traveling east with a number of waterfalls on our list. We packed up our car and headed out.

Before we got too far, we drove to the other side of the river from our cabin to see a waterfall. If you love waterfalls, then Iceland is a good place to visit. Andrea like waterfalls. She says that in California everything is so dry, and the sound of flowing water is a sound she loves. So although Ægissíðufoss is not on the main tourist list, we stopped by to check it out. We saw a number of fishermen along the river as well. Fly fishing seems popular in this area.

We stopped at a bakery for some things for breakfast and then moved along to our first waterfall stop. Actually this was a series of waterfalls, but two of them were noteworthy. The first one, Seljalandsfoss, is unique because it falls down over a slight cave so people can walk behind it. Of course in the process of walking behind it, one is likely to get wet. The trail on the right side facing the falls is pretty easy to use with stairs and a fairly flat surface. The other side is a different story with a lot of rocks to maneuver over. I was a bit challenged there with my trekking poles, but eventually made it.

The view from behind the waterfall is nice, but as it was cloudy, the falls tended to fade into the gray sky. This is when having a nice blue sky background would have been nice.

From Seljalandsfoss there is a trail that goes along the edge of the cliff, and there are two more waterfalls coming down off the edge. Neither are particularly large or significant. However, as one reaches the end of the trail there is another unique waterfall. This time the waterfall is inside a cave. The cave is not particularly hard to access. There is a stream coming out of the cave from the waterfall, but there are enough rocks along the edge that one can get in without getting their feet wet.

Inside the cave Gljúfrafoss is pretty high so it is quite dramatic. The challenge is getting a good photo. Being inside a cave doesn’t allow enough distance from the falls to easily photograph the entire water flow. There is also a lot of mist in the cave from the falling water so visitors do get wet, and your camera will get wet. Having a soft cleaning cloth to wipe off your lens can be useful here.

We walked back to the area by Seljalandsfoss where we had parked. Two things are worth noting. There is a gift shop as well as bathrooms here. We encountered few public bathrooms at all the places we had visited so we were impressed with having some here. The second thing to note is there is a fee to park. They take credit cards through a machine so it’s not difficult to pay. Be warned as a parking attendant wrote tickets for those who had not bothered to pay the parking fee.

Finally we were off to our next sight to see, another waterfall. Skógafoss is a tall waterfall and has some width to it. It was very powerful as it came over the cliff. However, the unique feature here was the stairs that visitors can climb to take them to the top of the falls. We climbed the stairs. Andrea counted 429. The lowest section is the killer part. Those first steps are quite high, and it takes a bit of effort to get up them. The rest of the way is metal stairs that are quite comfortable to walk up. My only complaint here was that the hand rail is only on one side of the stairs, and it alternates sides as one goes up.

From the top we discovered that this wasn’t just a view of the top of the falls and the surrounding area. It was also a trail that led up stream. Apparently there are a series of waterfalls to be seen. We walked a short distance up to see the first falls, Hestavaosfoss, but didn’t go any farther. We did see two families from our hike yesterday at the falls. They were apparently following a similar guide book as we were.

Our next stop was not a waterfall. In fact we are visiting something we have not seen frequently yet, the coast. Our first stop was an island area which had great views of the black sand beaches as well as some of the rock formations along the coastal edge. However, it is also the home for puffins who nest in a cliff along with other birds. That was what was attracting all the attention. A group of photographers were all lined up watching the cliff for signs of the puffin to fly in or out. They had serious lenses on their cameras. I didn’t even have my small telephoto lens with me at the time so I couldn’t even consider competing with them for the money making photo they were looking for. So I stuck to photos of the beach and the photographers.

This area is called Dyrhólaey which means “the hill island with the door hole.” This refers to the open arch in the rock formation that juts out into the water. From this area it was hard to get an angle to see it clearly, but from further away the arch was more obvious. The largest arch is large enough for a boat to go through.

From the island we drove the short distance to Reynisfjara Beach, a black sand beach. This area was not at all what I expected. First off I would not call this black sand. It was more like black rocks or pebbles. The unusual aspect for me was that most of the rocks are flat and rounded. I thought they would make great rocks to skip across the water. There really wasn’t much actual sand on most of the beach.

The other unique aspect of this beach were the caves. The first cave is visible as you walk onto the beach. To the right of the cave are a lot of vertical basalt columns. The cave is shallow, but it is pretty impressive when you see it as you enter the beach.

However, it turns out that there is another cave around the corner that faces the water. This cave is deeper and the rock patterns seem more random, especially on the interior of the cave. The opening is quite tall. The challenge as a photographer is getting the entire mouth of the cave in the photo. Because it is facing the water, I could only walk back so far, and it was not enough to get the whole cave in the frame. Andrea, using her iPhone, was able to do it with one of her settings. Not the first time her iPhone had capabilities beyond my camera. My solution was to shoot from inside the cave to get a sense of the size of the opening.

From here we were also close to the sea stacks we saw from a distance at Dyrhólaey . They are named Reynisdrangar and are a prominent part of the scenery here. The interesting thing is that there are three sea stacks on the left, but from the beach here they are visually lined up so it looks like only one.

Having gotten enough exercise walking around in the pebbles and sand, we were ready to have some lunch. As we drove back to the main road, we passed another typical red roof church. I couldn’t resist a photo.

We stopped at the nearby town of Vik and had delicious pulled pork sandwiches. We got gas and groceries before leaving town. The grocery shopping turned challenging when the self check out charged me $24 for two apples. It took a while to get that straightened out. It was embarrassing as they kept wondering what I had done.

We had about an hour’s drive to get to our accommodations for the evening. The drive took us through a variety of terrains which is indicative of Iceland. First we were driving through fields of lupine. They were really abundant in this area. However, that eventually changed to pretty boring, flat terrain which had some brown dried grass growing on it with some moss. Initially we saw some patches of lupine, but eventually only the dry grass.

The third type of terrain we saw was a lava flow. Here the moss was working to break down the rocks into soil. This was something our guide had talked about on our hike. The moss takes a lot of years to break down the rock into sufficient soil for other plants to begin to live there. This moss is not bright green, but an ugly gray. It creates a very ugly landscape in my opinion. This lava flow is from 1783, and when the volcano erupted, it caused a lot of damage and problems to the area. To this day the land remains unusable.

We stopped at the Katla Geopark and were able to get up close to see this part of nature. Not the most beautiful, but it is interesting to see the signs of life that are coming up.

Arriving at an early hour, we had a nice relaxing evening. This cabin was fairly large with two bedrooms and a nice wide front deck which I really enjoyed. We would stay here two nights. I was looking forward to a good nights sleep before our activities tomorrow.

There are only two more posts left in my Iceland Interlude series. What have you found most interesting or unexpected so far? I’d love to hear from you, and there’s still time to share this with a friend. Next week we will explore glaciers. Until then…..