Day 2 turned out to be a much better day weather-wise as it didn’t rain at all. After we had our (very cheap) cereal and Icelandic yogurt breakfast in the hostel, Grainne and I headed out back onto the road, this time going south-east to Vik. Before we got to Vik though, we stopped at the Seljalandsfoss waterfall and the Gljúfrabúi hidden waterfall right next to it.
Additional pictures from Seljalandsfoss waterfall:
Once we left Seljalandsfoss waterfall we found the Gljúfrabúi hidden waterfall a few hundred feet away. We did a little off-the-path trekking to get aerial views:
Additional pictures of the Gljúfrabúi hidden waterfall:
After these waterfalls, it was on to the next waterfall! We kept driving south-west and eventually got to the Skógafoss Waterfall. I think this was my favorite waterfall (although that also may have been because it was perfect weather by the time we got here).
Additional pictures from Skógafoss waterfall:
After Skógafoss waterfall, Grainne and I went on an adventure to find a plane crash that I thought looked cool to check out in the pictures. For this, we had to park the car and walk an hour over rocky-sand. We laughed when we got there because it was interesting, but it wasn’t worth the walk.
When we were done at the airplane crash site, we walked another hour back to the car and headed to the Reynishverfi Basalt Column Beach. This was my second favorite non-waterfall stop of the trip. The basalt columns reminded me of the Giant’s Causeway in Ireland. The beach itself was really neat to walk on as well. It’s called the Black Sand Beach and really it’s not sand but small black rocks the size of the tip of your thumb. What’s interesting about it is that when the water from the ocean comes up the shoreline, instead of the water receding back into the ocean, it looks like the water just falls beneath the black rocks. This is because normal sand on beaches is so small that when all clumped together the water can’t flow beneath them. However, because the Black Sand Beach is made of small rocks, there is plenty of room for the water just to fall beneath and seemingly disappear. Below is a picture of the Reynishverfi Basalt Column Beach
And beneath that is a picture where I tried to show the black rocks that make up the beach. If looking at the below picture, what essentially happens is instead of the foam floating on top of the sand and back down into the ocean, the foam basically just sinks and disappears. It’s really neat and I’d recommend looking up a short YouTube video of it.
Additional pictures from Reynishverfi Basalt Column Beach:
By the time we were done on the beach, we grabbed dinner and drove the few last miles to our hostel near Vik. Day 2 was a very long and busy day, but lots of fun with great sites. Click here for Day 3 of our trip.