From Hofn to Skogar

We were sad to leave behind the amazing beauty of the glacier, but we had a long drive down to the south coast and so got an early start. We were out of bed and packed up by 7:00 a.m. and enjoyed another delicious breakfast at Arnanes. We decided to stop once more at the glacial lagoon in hopes of spotting some seals. Since the weather was a little better, we were not disappointed. There were around 8 or 9 of them swimming around the mouth of the river that runs out of the lagoon.

 After watching the seals for a bit we decided to go across the road where we could watch ice bergs float out into the ocean. We were amazed to find a beautiful black sand beach with hundreds of ice bergs washed ashore. It was magnificent. We hung out on the beach for a short while, took some pictures, and even purloined a ziplock bag of the black sand along with a rock as a souvenir.

Then we were back on the road. We weren't sure what the day would hold but we knew we wanted to stop in Vik and end up in Skogar. We were hoping to put ourselves in a position to catch a bus to visit Thorsmork National Park. The first part of the drive we continued to have spectacular views of the glacier.

Once we rounded the bend onto the south coast we left behind the majesty of the glacier. If you can call any section of the Ring Road boring and unattractive then this might be it. The glacier run off creates a giant barren swampy flood plains from it's edge to the coast. Much of this we had to cross on bridges. During the drive we did see two unusual and interesting things however. First we saw this incredible rainbow unlike any we had ever seen. Rather than being an arc or half arc across the sky, this rainbow stretched across the horizon in front of us where the sky met the land. We felt as though we were driving straight into the magical land of Icelandic elves. It stayed with us for a long time and kept us company on the "long" (by Icelandic standards) monotonous drive. The other unusual thing we saw was a long twisted piece of metal; a monument to a huge glacial flood that utterly destroyed a large concrete bridge.

We arrived in Vik in time for lunch and found a gas stop where Brandon ordered Icelandish lamb soup and I had fish and chips. We also found a touristy yet affordable wool shop where we found a few gifts including gloves for Violette, a headband for Vivienne, and a beanie for our annual Floerke Family gift exchange.

We got back on the road and before long we reached Skogar. Our first stop was to check out Skogafoss. At this point we had seen many waterfalls and weren't as easily impressed. Skogafoss however was one of the prettiest waterfalls we had seen.

After getting a good look at Skogafoss we went to the visitor center and learned that our plans for a bus trip in and hike out of Thorsmork weren't possible. The timing of it would have put us hiking in the middle of the night. We were disappointed but settled for pitching our tent next to the beautiful waterfall and doing a shorter hike the next morning.

After setting up camp we decided to visit this fascinating folk museum near the campground. The curator has collected everything from all ages of Iceland's past; dolls, clothes, boats, agricultural tools, musical instruments, books. There are also several historic buildings including turf covered houses and a church. The "collection" is widely anachronistic - stuff just everywhere in no particular order.

We finished up our day with a dinner of pasta and red wine. We slept pleasantly amidst a crowd of Europeans preparing to embark on the hike to Thorsmork.