We were out the door early because we had an hour drive to get to our first stop – a zodiac glacier tour on Jökulsárlón lake, the deepest lake in Iceland, at 248m (813ft).
The weather wasn’t promising, but there was a chance we could get our zodiac tour of the glacier in between the rain storms. When we arrived we were greeted by beautiful ice floes right at the parking lot.
Some of us couldn’t resist 🙂
We soon got suited up for the ride in survival gear. I was hoping I wasn’t going to be the guy to test it out 🙂
A short waddle down to the boat and we were off! We maneuvered through the ice near the parking lot before racing across the lake to the face of the glacier. The ice was amazing to see up close.
After the zodiac ride, we headed up the road a couple miles to Skaftafell National Park for a hike out to see another glacier. It was here, about half way to the glacier, that our luck turned and it started raining.
On the way back it even started sleeting! We were soaked by the time we got back to the visitor center. Thankfully, they had a cafe and, after some hot soup, we were feeling a bit less soggy.
We stopped at another glacier, Kviamyrarkambur (how’s your pronunciation coming along with all these names?) 😵💫
It’s shocking to see just how much these glaciers have receded in just the last 10 years. Some close to a mile.
We didn’t get to explore the famous ‘diamond beach’ because of the rain There was some ice on the beach but none of us were interested in going back out into the pouring rain so we just observed from the car before moving on.
From there is was pretty much on to Vik (‘veek’) and our hotel, Katla, for a hot tub to warm up before a scrumptious buffet dinner. It’s hard to believe our trip around the island will come an end in just 2 more days!
