Sorry for the hiatus in postings. I’ve had a cold the last few days and didn’t have energy enough to write for the last two. I’m better now.
On Saturday, we had booked a “Super Jeep” tour into Thorsmork Park, which started at 10 a.m. We left the hotel early to stop at another waterfall site before the tour. We stopped at the waterfall Skógafoss, which is a wide waterfall. At the site, the Icelanders were getting ready to start a 24-kilometer running race that stated up the hill next to the falls. We would also see the finish line later in the day.
The starting point for our tour into Thorsmork Park was not too far away. The “Super Jeep” was actually a huge Mercedes Benz van that could seat about 12 people, was 4-wheel drive, had dynamic inflatable/deflatable tires and an air snorkel for the engine which allowed it to drive through rivers. And our driver guide drove us through many. We chose this tour at Denise’s (one of our Aussie travel companions) request to see a site where her favorite band had shot a music video. It was a spectacular canyon, and after our driver had forded several rivers, she parked the van and we walked up the canyon.
The tour lasted 6 hours and we also visited a glacier, another canyon, and had lunch at a small restaurant that’s probably open only in the summer. The end of the 24-kilometer running race was at that restaurant and we watched a few of the runners finish.
On Sunday, we drove 2 hours east from Vik to a place called Diamond Beachin English. It has that name because a glacier at the head of an inlet there calves into icebergs that float out to meet the surf of the Atlantic Ocean, where they melt or break into small pieces. Those pieces then are washed up onto a black sand (lava) beach, where they sparkle like diamonds.
After spending time at the beach, we drove 3+ hours west again, back to the town of Selfoss where we spent Sunday night at Hotel South Coast again.
Monday (today), we continued driving west toward Reykjavik, stopping a few times along the way. We were driving through an area that is more volcanically active. We stopped at some boiling mud pots, viewed some lava that had flowed with the last few years, and stopped in the city of Grindavik, which had nearly been hit by a lava flow in 2025. The government built a berm to protect the town, but now many of the houses are abandoned due to the close call and remaining risk of another eruption. We ate lunch in Grindavik.
Monday afternoon we returned to Hotel Klettur in Reykjavik for one night. Cathy and a Denise wanted to experience a geothermal spa, so after dinner we dropped them off at Sky Lagoon for a luxurious soak in hot pools on the shore on the edge of Reykjavik. I chose not to go to the lagoon because of the coughing from my cold, and I wasn’t too keen to soak anyway. But they enjoyed the experience.
Lori's Travels 