Iceland’s Southern Coast

 It was an exciting day today, as this is the day we’ll see parts of Iceland we’ve not seen before.

We’re exploring the south coast, from Reykjavik to Vik and back.

The weather seemed to change every five minutes or so, with patches of blue sky one moment, then the next time you look, it’s overcast and threatening rain.

At breakfast, we noticed that our ship had come in… literally.

Viking Jupiter, we’ll see ya tomorrow! But first, waterfalls, black beaches, and puffins.

Pétur picked us up at the hotel and off we went. A brief pause where was a nice scenic overlook of the town of Hveragerdi

First stop: Seljalandsfoss, a magnificent 80m tall waterfall

If it doesn’t look that big or impressive in this next picture, find the people in the pic to give it some scale

You can even get in behind it

The climb back up from there is hidden from the entrance and I don’t think a lot of these tourists knew they’d be climbing up wet, slippery rocks to get back to their buses!

Speaking of climbing, the next stop was Skógafoss, also a giant waterfall… you couldn’t get behind it, but you could go up to the top via 420 stairsteps.

And even though the view from up there was great….

…It was even better because there was another waterfall upstream from Skógafoss called Hestavadsfoss

A quick burger for lunch, then it was back on the road…

…to the little town of Vik and the Víkurfjara beach

Pictures won’t do it justice. It was like a scene from another world. It was ‘holy-shit-impressive’ and my favourite thing I’ve seen in Iceland yet.

The rock formations jutting out of the water seemed other-worldly

And then the sun came out and blue skies happened!

After the beach, we went to a rocky cliff to see some holes

think the rock out by itself to the right looks like a baby elephant

We also looked for puffins. They’re hard to find, since they live on sheer cliff faces and you’ve got to find a place where you can see the cliffs… not easy to do when you’re on top! Luckily, there were a few zigs and zags that allowed us to see a puffin or two

Even managed to catch this one in mid-flight!

I also learned that sheep sometimes like to hang out on the beach. Who knew?

It also gave us a view of those rock formations from the opposite direction

Then we went to see a glacier. The black sand on it makes it look a little like cookies-n-cream ice cream

And since that pic doesn’t show scale at all, here’s one where you can see a line of hikers making their way onto the ice. It was really big!

And then jet lag kicked in and we cat-napped all the way back to Reykjavik. We arrived a bit late for our 6pm reservation at the fish and chips place, so “our” table was already taken, but we got in without any problems. Unfortunately, a rowdy table of a bunch of guys next to us plus very slow service kinda took some of the charm away from it, but the food was still good.

Two very tired travellers (my watch says I walked 10.4km and climbed 38 flights of stairs) got back to the hotel and collapsed. It was a challenge to force ourselves to stay up past 10pm, but we’re determined to get over this jet lag somehow.

Tomorrow, we hop on board the Viking Jupiter!

On to the next day!

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