Well, such a change in our weather fortunes from the blue afternoon skies and clear night skies of Sunday; today it poured down all day and visibility was very low. But, with true British spirit it didn't deter us and we set off along the south coast to Vik, a 260 mile and 6hr drive round-trip. All along the country's famous 'Route 1'
Our original plan was to do the 'Golden Circle' but we decided to leave that for a day, so at around 10:15am we left the apartment and headed out of Reykjavik. Whilst visibility was low and we couldn't get much of a view of the beautiful countryside, we did at least get a feel for the landscape of South Iceland, lots of lava fields covered in all forms of vegetation, with mountains on our left which we could just make out through the rain, and fairly flat plains to our right towards the North Atlantic.
Around 90 minutes into the drive we saw the Seljalandfoss waterfall over on the left, so pulled off the main road and parked up. It was a great sight, you could walk along the path behind the waterfall and it was so good to see the world from behind such a sheet of water. Yes we were soaked, the rain started it off but the spray from the waterfall was like being back in the shower but with clothes on, quite a fun experience.
After around 30 minutes we took off our wet gear and jumped back into the car to continue our journey. As we travelled along the road we could see the Skogafoss waterfall which we decided we would go and see on the return route, and a few miles further on we passed the tongue of the Myrdalsjokull glacier which we could just make out a few miles from the ring road. Nowhere near being the biggest glacier in Iceland but at 230 square miles in size still a decent sized one.
By the time we arrived in Vik it was around 2pm so first thing; some food. Donna had found the Halldorskaffi restaurant on Tripadvisor so we headed in-doors and sat down for a meal of gorgeous burgers (no more this holiday) followed by a slice of Skyrcake and Meringue; lovely.
Now time to brave the rain again and head out to Vik's famous 'Black Sand Beach' Ok it will look far more stunning in good weather with the sun showing off how black the sand is, but it was still great to see it in the flesh and just walk along it, looking at all the black pebbles; not something you see on a typical trip to the 'seaside' We wandered around for about 30 minutes then headed back to the car. We had hoped to see the basalt columns which were nearby, but decided that due to the weather and time constraints that we would head back and make sure we stopped off at Skogafoss.
It was about 45 minutes back along Route 1, and was well worth getting wet yet again. What a sight, what power, what a location. To be honest you forget about how wet you are when you see something like this, this is what memories are made of. Ok the rain limits he number and quality of the photos, but the one photo that's most important is the one in your head.
Now around 5pm and time to head back as we still had around another 2hrs drive to get back to Reykjavik. We arrived back at the cottage just before 7pm, hung all our clothes and boots up to dry (so much more practical than just a hotel room), ate the sandwiches we had packed up to take with us in case we needed them during the day; which obviously we didn't, and after fighting the tiredness by 8pm I had left Donna with the TV and laptop and gone to bed. A very tiring but very enjoyable trip out.
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