Day 3 Glaciers and a Diamond Beach

Today we continue with our trek.  On the agenda is a lava field, a canyon, a glacier, a lagoon and a beach. The weather is holding up and we are hoping for another dry day.  We left Vik around 9:30am and the temperature was -2 degrees Celsius.  But luckily, while on the drive, it has warmed up to 0 degrees.  On the bright side, good refrigeration for our drinks.  We just leave them in the car.

The Eldhraun Lava Field was mostly a snow field. But, we did take some photos.  It’s pretty white here as you can see.  Rick note: My favorite part of this stop was the group of Russian (or some other slavic nationality) on a tour and as soon as they get out of the bus, many of them start lighting up their cigarettes.  The prefered disposal method was to throw the butts on the ground and cover them with snow.  This made me regret selling my Philip Morris stock...it is hard to bet against human stupidity.

Our next stop is the Fjaoragljufur Canyon.  It too was snow covered but the hike in the snow gave us an opportunity to use our crampons.  Thanks for my crampons Debbie!  They worked great!  Here are some photos of the canyon.  Rick note: for you geology people out there (this does not include my sister if she took Geology 10 at Cal...Rocks for Jocks does not count)...this area is where the North American and the Eurasian tectonic plates come together.  BTW, the answer to the question in the first blog about who still uses the Imperial System of measurements...the USA, Myanmar and Liberia...nice!

Next it's time for the glacier hike.  The Svinafellsjokull Glacier is about an hour away from the Fjaoragljufur Canyon. We hiked it for about an hour took a lot of photos.  The pale blue from the ice was super cool.  There was an ice cave but it was not accessible so I only took photos of it.  I will say, people say that Greenland is ice and Iceland is green but Iceland is pretty darn icy.  BTW, the weather is a beautiful sunny day. A little windy but nothing terrible.  Another thumbs up day weather wise.

Rick's note: lunch today was a sandwich and a Icelandic soda with a very nice view from inside Dusty our Dacia Duster.  The soda tricked me, the words on the label said Grape but the color was yellow so I was intrigued.  Maybe some type of muscat grape soda??  Alas, I failed to see the image of the citrus fruit under the words grape.  So in Icelandic, the words 'grape' + a citrus fruit equal grapefruit soda...it was a bit bitter but hey, it's grapefruit soda!

Next is the famous Diamond Beach.  It’s also about an hour away from the Svinafellsjokull Glacier.  It turns out that Diamond beach was a total bust.  There were no diamonds on Diamond Beach.  But here is a picture of diamond beach.  I guess it's still too early for the glaciers to melt.

Rick's note: Rosie is being too kind.  Diamond Beach is a bunch of BS.  This is just false advertising if you ask me.  Look at the last photo below.  That is what is on the web when you Google, Diamond Beach.  The Icelandic Tourist Board must have paid some Photoshop expert a lot of money to fabricate that picture.  But actually, the coolest thing about Diamond Beach is where the water flowing from the glacier inland hits the waves trying to come inland.  It was quite a turbulent place.

Across from Diamond Beach is the Jokulsarlon Glacier Lagoon.  It was not very exciting… but here is a panoramic photo of it.

Next stop is Vestrahorn.  This was a really interesting stop.  It’s a private beach so you have to pay 900 Kronos per person to access it.  Even though it was dry when we were driving, it was snowing pretty hard while we were there… it must be how it comes down the mountain.  It was snowing so hard, I couldn’t see the mountain to photograph it.  It’s also weird to see the ocean frozen over.  Remember when I said it was sunny this morning?  Yeah, it's snowing here.  

 

Rick's note: below is the video I captured from the first photo Rosie took of me at Vestrahorn.  Please note, the finger covering part of the lens is for added stability in the wind...😉

We now head to Hofn, where we will stay tonight.  It’s already 5:30pm. We got to the hotel, checked in and looked at where to go for dinner.  Hofn is known for it's langostino so we went to a restaurant called Pakkhus.  RIck and I both ordered the langostino bisque and I had the grilled lamb and Rick had the cod.  And then eventually we switched, because Rick is not much of a fish guy.  Rick's note: prior to ordering we discussed Rosie getting the cod and me getting the lamb.  Next thing you know when the waitress comes by, Rosie calls an audible and orders the lamb helfself.  This gets me so flustered that this is some type of husband test that I dutifully ordered the cod.  On the upside, the cod was swimming in a nice buttery sauce with a bunch of vegatables...and it didn't even taste like fish.  So that is a win for Rick.  Dinner was really good and I would recommend this restaurant.  People complain about how expensive the food is in Iceland because a lof of it has to be imported but I don't really think it's that bad.  Dinner tonight was about $100 USD.  I don't think that's much at all.

Rick's note: the dinner restaurant was right on the harbor in Hofn.  It had a very quaint seafaring theme.  Parts of the harbor where pretty iced over.  Below is a pitcure of some kind of trawler to see if my brother-in-law Jay actually reads to this part in the blog.

I don't think that the food is too expensive but holy cow, gas is outrageous!  I calculated and it's $12.42 per gallon.  Now that is EXPENSIVE!

After dinner we went back to the hotel (Milk Factory).  Both Rick and I loaded up on Airborne  because we were seated next to this old guy and he was coughing up a lung the entire time... nothing like a little tuberculosis with your dinner. 

The rest of tonight will be getting ready to take my Northen Lights photos... I hope they come!  Also, tomorrow is our ice cave tour so we have to leave earlier than normal to get there on time so we need to motivate tonight and get everything packed and ready.

That is it for day 3.  There was a lot of driving today but I must say, it went by really fast!