Day 6: It's Snow!

Our round-the-island journey resumed after a brief stay at Höfn where we had the closest contact with the glacier’s tongue. Ordinary motors cannot climb up the pretty inclined bumpy roads up the mountain. So we transferred to a 4WD jeep which took us all the way up to 1.3km above sea level. The journey was not comfortable at all given the rocky gravel or snowy roads.



A special note: This is my first time to touch snow in reality. Amazing! Upon arrival of the highest point you could not imagine the strength of the roaring wind. It could easily blow anyone off the ground. The white and shinny surface of the snow reflects much sunlight making it extremely irritating without sunglasses.

Me and Snow

Though it seems that there is still plenty of glacier left, the fact is that the ‘tip’ of the glacier has retreated a lot over the past 30 years. I wonder whether we could still find snow up there in another 30 years.

Glacier's Tongue Retreating ...

Getting down from the mountain, we had a feast at Höfn downtown in a restaurant recommended by AA Guide. With a full stomach, we proceeded north to Egilsstaðir on a not-that-well paced road. (We wanted to save time, so I switched to the “fastest route” mode in the GPS navigation device.)

Feast in Höfn

Now I’m staying at another Edda hotel. Our next stop would be the second largest city in Iceland, Akureyri.

Edda Hotel in Egilsstaðir

Day 5: Glacier Lagoon

Continuing on Route 1 heading east, we left Vik after taking a few photos of the fabulous scenery around. Here's one:

This is Vik

A damaged bridge near highway

As we stopped by Jökulsárlón, it was the first time in Iceland we had a chance to see (closely) or even touch ice. We took a boat tour and traveled in the lagoon which is full of melting ice berg which later on flows into the sea. It was cold and windy.

This is the Glacier Lagoon

Some ice burg appears to be blue due to optical illusion as they absorb all the other light rays but the blue rays. The black ice burgs are in fact ones that are covered with volcano ashes.

Blue Ice Burg

The ice in the lagoon are over thousand years old so it is pretty strong and takes 5 times more time to melt it. While under water, they are crystal clear but would soon crystalize once in contact with air and turns 'white'.

Me holding ice. Icy!

To a person who has never seen snow in his life, crystallized ice burgs are already pretty new and exciting for me. Tomorrow, we've planned to go up to icy mountains and have close contact with snow.

Back on land, we moved on to our next destination - Höfn, a pretty small town. Our dinner at the hotel we stayed in was a fish buffet (which was really cheap compared to set dinner costing only Kr 3200 each). Every dish that could be made from salmon was served e.g. smoke salmon, steamed salmon, salmon dressing, salmon pie ... Delicious and full. We'll continue tomorrow.