We woke earlyish again (about 8), and had breakfast in the barn. Ellis made himself a cheese and ham sandwich, Luca just kind of picked at a few things, saying he wasn't hungry (and surprise surprise, was caught red handed with his hand in a bag of crisps half an hour later), I made the most of the free food - particularly the muesli and sour milk and the oddly chocolatey rye bread.
Now that the visibility had improved (though it was still a bit drizzly), we could see mountains from our room. I later realised that the 3 points of light I'd seen the night before were from the sun setting as making itself visible only in the valleys between the mountains.
Today was going to be our biggest day in terms of things I wanted to cram in - a visit to Seljalandsfoss, the glacier walk (I was really worried that this would be too much for Ellis, particularly if it was raining), and a walk on Vik beach (I desperately, desperately wanted to do this, but was realistic that Ellis might be knackered after the glacier walk).
Ellis continued his habit of falling asleep nearly as soon as we started to drive somewhere. We made our way to Rte 1, which we would then continue on all the way round Iceland. The scenery here was somewhat typical of Northumberland - nice, but not massively impressive, I hoped for more drama later. I was however struck by how many horses there were in the fields, hundreds of them. Were they wild? I'm not sure.
I tried my damnedest to keep under the speed limit. At one point we passed a police car which was lurking at the side of the road. I was reassured by the fact that most other people seemed to be going faster than me. 90km an hour actually started to feel like a good leisurely pace.
The scenery started to get more dramatic(i.e. mountainous), as we approached our first stop - Seljalandsfoss. I stopped at the side of the road to take a quick pic. As I drove off I wondered why some hitch hikers were staring at me. We turned into the lane which would take us to the car park, there was a clatter at the bag of the car and Luca exclaimed that "The boot's open!". I immediately stopped, and jumped out the car, but without putting the handbrake on... the car rolled forward, the boys screamed (and laughed!), I jumped back in and put the brakes on. Luckily nothing was lost and only a small dent in one of the flasks was sustained. Phew!!!
After collecting ourselves we parked up, putour waterproofs on and walked toward the waterfall. This one was high and thin and you could walk all the way round the back and get a bit wet in the process. The water fell with a terrifying force and I wondered if anyone had ever tried to swim where the water hit. We walked around a little, Ellis took some more slow shutter photos and we set off for our next destination - the Glacier Walk.
On the way we stopped briefly at an exhibition about Eyjafjallajökull where the 2010 volcano eruption had been. I made use of the toilet (I seemed to need to go for a pee every 30 minutes). And then we stopped at a cool little road side cafe. I got the binoculars so that we could look at the impressive mountain sides to our rear. We argued about the correct way to set them up and then our food arrived. Luca had an Icelandic Hot Dog, with all the toppings (although they put all the toppings under the hot dog, which is actually a really good idea!), and Ellis had a pizza which was far too big for him (I ate most of it), and I can't remember what I had.
We got to the glacier (the Sólheimajökull tongue of Mýrdalsjökull nice and early. And the weather was in good form. I fretted that the guides weren't going to turn up, but they did. There were about 15 people doing the tour of mixed nationalities, ages and abilities. We got kitted out with crampons and axes (though we never really needed the axes), the guides commented on my boots (which were massively over specced for the walking we'd be doing on this holiday), and rucsac and we later had a quick chat about hill walking and mountaineering.
The walk was excellent. The glacier instilled a real sense of "sublimed awe and terror" in me. It was huge, cracked and broken, like the back of a large lizard it looked like Godzilla was slowly descending between the mountains. In small patches it was a perfect azure blue, but particularly toward the bottom it was scattered with lines of dark rock dust. We walked along lines of ice between the crevaces, gradually rising to nearly the highest point of the glacier. They pointed out how much higher the glacier had been about 20 years ago and it was pretty shocking. I'd been lecturing the boys about global warming that morning and was hoping that some of it was sinking in.
We dipped our heads in meltwater which ran in streams along the surface and drank from it - it had frozen 500 years ago, before polution existed in the world. We followed the stream and then walked into a large chasm it had created and through a small, narrow cave it had formed. Magic.
The boys loved it. Ellis said it was the most amazing thing he'd ever done.
We drove to Vik (Ellis had another sleep). We found somewhere to eat - the boys had a really nice pasta and I had the best lamb I've ever eaten.
I was really happy that Ellis had plenty of energy to go for a walk on Vik beach. Particularly as the sun was setting and it was a gorgeous evening. The beach really didn't disappoint. The sand was splinters of basalt, so was dark grey when dry, but rich black when wet. We scrambled on the columns which ran up the cliff edge (though I wouldn't let the boys go as high as they wanted), walked through a large open cave, bouldered on the cliff and then walked along the beach to the other end where there were more rocks to clamber on. Brilliant.
The drive to our next hotel was done first during dusk and then night. The dusk portion was beautiful, especially looking over the immensely flat landscape which seemed to continue for ever as you looked out to sea, but was cut short by the sudden introduction of mountains as you looked inland. It would have been lovely to pause here for longer and walk in the huge flatness, but it was also wonderful to drive through it, especially as we seemed to be the only people in the road. As we continued though, it was truly disappointing to have to drive through what was clearly beautiful scenery, littered with waterfalls, which you could tell were there, but not enjoy in the darkness.
We parked up at the next hotel, which was in the middle of nowhere. Grabbed our stuff and went to bed.
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