16.06 - Day 153 - Hali to Hvoll
Sunday 16th June - Hali - Hvoll (Day 153)
The sun is trying to push through the clouds as we leave the seafront of Skyrhusid Guest House starting our journey back westwards. We’re at Jokulsarlon by 9:30 am and although the car park is half full, the overflow car park is empty and there’s no tour buses here yet on the famed stop off.
The kids warm into the ever changing views of the mixture of icebergs, larger ones wedged to the floor and smaller ones drifting out through a single channel under the main road and out to sea.
There’s a stream of rib boats and amphibious vehicles ferrying people onto the glacier lagoon - we’ll do our trip on a quieter lagoon a little later, this one being fully booked out all day. The icebergs vary in colour too and at a distance all appear very smooth yet small broken bits on the shore show several much more intricate delicate ice carvings.
We follow the stream to the shore past nesting ducks before hopping in the car to cross the bridge and park the other side to walk about onto the black sand of Diamond Beach - so named for the shards of ice scattered on the beach shimmering in the dappled sunlight, continually shifting and shrinking under the pressure of the cold Atlantic waves. It is all very spectacular.
Late in the morning we drive 15 minutes to the lesser visited Fjallsarlon where chunks of ice seem scattered closer to the shore; close enough for trying to land some thrown stones on them before they melt away.
Last night we’d booked onto a boat tour at 12:30 and with six others we got suited up in very effective oversized jackets plus narrow lifejackets. Meanwhile the kids are given full overalls to keep them warm even if Seb looks like the Michelin man with restricted movements.
Our 45 minute ride with Jules, a french skipper allows us to move slowly between the icebergs, with him throughout many stat bombs along the way. This glacier with 30+ fingers contains enough ice to give every person in the world one square cube metre of ice.
He fishes out some small pieces of ice created 500 years ago which Sienna and Seb try to eat like ice cream. We get closer to the bottom of the glacier but not too close on the cautious trip and enjoy the solitude of being the only people on the lagoon that drops to depths of 130 metres and is only 70 years old. Half the lagoon took 50 years to be revealed, the second half only 20 years such is the acceleration of global warming.
Very glad we had the time to find and make the boat trip for a different perspective on this evolving natural sight.
With hungry mouths we eat lunch in the car having set off but end up stopping 15 minutes later anyway at an opportunistic small waterfall - Grofarlackjarfoss - where we scramble down to the base of the underfall all alone, the kids encouraging each other along. The source is also set amidst fields of the bluey purple lupins for added effect.
We press on, just overshooting our accommodation to see some unusually straight edged basalt rock columns at Dverghamrar; Sienna showing off her scrambling skills whilst Seb naps in the car.
The sound of car doors wakes him so we stop just another 500 metres up the road at Fossalar, a small series of waterfalls and channels of water that disappear into the riverbank and emerge downstream. We try to follow buttercups and yellow dandelions down the rapids before launching more stones into the river.
It’s a final 15 minute drive back up a gravel road to Hvoll hostel; it has the feel of an accommodation block to host school groups and a large open dining area. It’s a shoes off place and the shoe racks by the door are filled with hiking boots next to our standard trainers - evidence of everyone coming to Iceland being prepared for Iceland rather than our casual passing through.
Sienna and Seb play on the climbing frame outside after a pasta and noodle dinner before we settle into our twin bunk room.