In Search of The Northern Lights. Day 2

 

It’s been 8 months since we were in Iceland and I am getting more and more desperate to go back. Particularly since I’ve been helping my friends with their upcoming trip there. And getting very jealous knowing just what spectacular beauty and awe of nature awaits them.

So I’ve decided it’s time to write up about our second day in Iceland this January. We had planned to drive from Reykjavik to Jokulsarlon Glacier Lagoon, and with only 5 hours of daylight, we started off early – well before the sun rose at 10:30 am. Rather early on we managed to get caught in a snow drift – a scary experience. The visibility was almost zero, telling where the road was was extremely difficult, made worse by the fact that it was still an hour or so before dawn. We must have been driving no more than 10km/h until we got down from a hill and into a valley where the drift suddenly stopped.

After that we drove through the lovely south Iceland landscapes, enjoying an hour long sunrise. The sun in Iceland in midwinter does not rise very high, so sunrises and sunsets are really long and the rest of the daylight hours are the so-called “Golden hours” when the sun is painting the world in lovely warm golden tones.

 

The first ‘tourist’ stop today was Seljalandsfoss – a 60m high waterfall, best known due to a walk that takes you behind its cascade. Unfortunately, when we were there, the path was frozen solid and extremely slippery from the spray coming off the waterfall. Not only that but the wind was howling and every time I lifted my foot to take a step, a gust came and nearly lifted me off my feet. So I didn’t manage to walk very close to the waterfall, even less – behind it. But, at least, I persevered instead of looking at the waterfall from our warm car, like my husband and daughter did J

Not too far from Seljalandsfoss is Skogafoss – another 60m high waterfall, however, a much wider and therefore, arguably, more impressive. Again my husband and daughter stayed in the car, whilst I braved the relentless wind and cold to get a closer look. The sheer size and sound of it is impressive made even more so by the snow around it and large icicles at the edges where any single droplet of water instantly freezes into intricate ice crystals hanging down from sheer, black volcanic rock.

I must say that driving in Iceland is really enjoyable and doesn’t seem tiring, no matter the long hours that we spent in our little car. Therefore the next two and a half hours of driving to Jokulsarlon seemed a breeze. We only had a very short stop in Vik to see its beautiful rock formations out into the sea, before crossing the vast flood plains where glacial meltwater, ten times the size and power of Amazon, has washed away everything that stood in its path after big volcanic eruptions caused parts of the vast Vatnajokull Ice Cap (biggest in Europe) to melt. Small streams of water criss-cross it permanently, those are passed over on narrow, one-lane wooden bridges unlike any that I have seen anywhere else in the world. To the left of us always remained the sheer cliffs that create the uninhabitable vast uplands of Iceland covered in glaciers, high mountains and (occasionally) exploding volcanoes. We passed the Eyaflajatlajokul – a volcano that erupted in 2010 causing a month of air flight disruptions all over Europe as well as many other volcanoes that have erupted in the past and will erupted again sooner or later. One of them, the Bardarbunga, is expected to erupt sometime soon, causing more chaos in flights.

The Jokulsarlong Glacier Lagoon itself is my highlight of all the Iceland experiences. Largely, perhaps, because we got there during sunset that painted the vast icebergs in bright orange, pink red tones, whilst the 200m deep lagoon remain dark blue. A contrast that begged to be photographed. The lagoon is massive in its size, especially if you consider that it only came into being 70 years ago when Breiðamerkurjökull glacier started to rapidly retreat. From the lagoon you can see the glacier itself – a vast dome of ice that rises over 900 m into the air. All that aside, wandering around its shore is an experience of a different kind. It is so unlike anything else, making me wonder if paradise can be cold, ice cold.