Iceland - Adventures in the south. Second part: the story of my travels through the south of Iceland

We woke up at 9 in the morning, fresh as a daisy. It was still dark, so we made the most of going to the nearest petrol station to have breakfast. A long trip to Jökulsárlón awaited us.

The trip from Vik to Jökulsárlón is amazing. We were on our own on the motorway for miles and miles, with some truly awesome landscapes. So this entry isn't going to have a lot of text, but photos. Only the ones that are worth it.

Svartifoss and Hundafoss:

On the way, we stopped in the Skaftafell National Park so we could do a small excursion to get to Svartifoss and Hundafoss. The landscape is spectacular; there's a huge quantity of streams and waterfalls. The majority of them were partially frozen on the surface whilst the water flowed underneath.

How beautiful are these photos of frozen branches.

We kept going up and after a short while we arrived at Hundafoss, a small waterfall.

From above you can see the bottom of the glacier.

The curious formations caused by the freeze.

Around 500m away is Svartifoss, a vertical wall of basalt that water falls over. During another time of year it melts, but in December it's completely frozen, so we didn't risk climbing it.

Jökulsárlón:

We continued on our journey. From the road, you can see enormous spits from the glacier. Although you can barely appreciate the true magnitude of it, Vatnajökull, is the biggest glacier in the whole of Europe. You can do excursions where you can walk over the glacier, always with a guide and crampons on your feet. But, the price and the few hours of light made us opt for carrying on our journey in the direction of Jökulsárlón, the glacier lake.

After a few kilometres we could see some small mounds next to the road. We left the car on the hard shoulder in the middle of nowhere, and we rushed up towards the top of these mounds, from where you could see the extraordinary glacier lake. We must have looked like goats, climbing up over the icy patches that were on the shore of the lake, and then we went back to the car.

We crossed the bridge and got to the most touristic part of the glacier.

Where would could enjoy a great sunset.

Also we went to the beach for a little bit, which was completely snowy. It was right next to us.

Icelandic horses. These horses are so nice! They came over to us to say hello when they saw that we'd stopped.

And here are some photos from the way back.

If you find one of these and you go faster than 90km per hour, hold onto your hats.

Night time photo from Vik beach.

And here is a video with a summary of the trip;)

Youtube

Photo gallery