Skaftafell

We covered a lot of ground today. We drove about 3 hours east to Skaftafell and Vatnajökull National Park. There are lots of great hiking trails though but we just did the shortest one to the Skaftafellsjökull glacier since we had a full day planned. It was slightly over an hour return trip with a nice easy walk and we got to go right up to the glacier and the small glacial lagoon there. It was really pretty with the glacier lodged between two jagged mountains.

Here's just a picture of some of the typical sights you see on HW 1. This is a tongue of the big Vatnajökull glacier.

Then we drove on a bit further until we got to Jökulsárlón which is a really cool glacial lagoon with a ton of icebergs in it. It's also now the deepest lake in Iceland. That area has been a setting for several Hollywood movies.

Then we started driving back west and stopped at Fjaðrárgljúfur. This was a neat canyon that we could walk along the top of and look down into it and see the river serpentining through. It had some really pretty views and was also a pretty easy walk.

We tried to stop and see the puffins at Dyrhólaey on the way back home but we never were able to see them. I'm not sure if we just weren't looking in the right place or if it was still too early in the day for them to be back from fishing. It had some great views of the coastline though.