Category: UK/Iceland, Summer 2023

Our second full day on the south coast of Iceland was spent visiting waterfalls, an amazing viewpoint, and a glacier.  First up, the waterfalls.  We headed west from the Umi hotel to a very crowded Seljalandsfoss Waterfall.  There were numerous busses at the site, so I knew that was a bad sign.

You can actually walk behind the waterfall, as seen in the above photo, but the line waiting to get to the backside was filled with people standing in the mist, so we opted out of that.  The video of waterfalls is always better than a still shot.

Here is a shot from a different angle.  This is just an 1 hour 45 minutes from Reykjavik, so if you want to visit do so early or late to avoid the crowds.  If you can do late on a sunny day you will get much better photos than we did…as the waterfall faces west.

If you take a short walk from this waterfall, maybe 300 meters, you come across a very unique waterfall called Gljufrabui (why no “foss” on the end?  I have no idea).

If you really want to see it you are going to get wet, so bring a raincoat!  We left ours in the car…doh!  The waterfall is tucked into a little box canyon, and it can get quite crowded in there!

We saw this guy hanging out along the trail.  The birds seem pretty damn tame here.

As we were leaving this location the traffic stopped, and we suddenly saw all these horses moving along the road.  Not sure what was happening, but I had to take a video!

From there we headed east, past our hotel, to Skogafoss Waterfall, another very popular place for the busses, since this is only a half hour from Seljalandsfoss (I know, these names are tiring…try spending weeks here!)  I found this to be a much more impressive waterfall though!

Again, video does it best!

A shot with fewer people….since you had to get wet to get the photo.

This time we pulled the right jackets out of the car!

There is a hike to a viewpoint at the top of the waterfall.  The reward was the beautiful double rainbow.  After we walked back down there was a little girl that was complaining about having to hike up the trail, but when I told her there was a double rainbow at the top she practically started running up!  You’re welcome parents, I accept Venmo.

We then drove further east to the Dyrholaey Viewpoint, near the town of Vik.  The road climbs up this rock cutting a beach in two, and excellent views can be had from both sides.  The rock in the background looks like Godzilla starting to rise from the deep…but then I’ve been drinking…so there’s that.

On the other side of the viewpoint we came upon these two Puffins, right at the side of the trail, like they were posing.  Puffin Kiss!

Puffin video!

After we walked away from the two Puffins, I was amazed at the paparazzi crowd that had gathered behind us!

This is such an incredible spot in the first place, but including the adorable Puffins just makes it that much better!

The view down the black sand beach is mesmerizing.  I could have sat here for an hour, but it was windy….and cold…and I didn’t have beer.

The beach below is called Reynisfjara Beach, and is an iconic spot along the south coast, but we just didn’t have time to visit it.  It was pretty damn cold for a beach visit regardless.

Next up was Solheimajokull Glacier, a short hike from the trailhead to visit the tongue of the glacier.  Again, we are close to Reykjavik, so this is a crowded spot.  The first thing you see are icebergs in the lake at the end of the glacier.

The glacier itself.  I’ve gotta say, as glaciers go, this one is pretty ugly.  We heard that the black is from volcanic dirt blowing onto the glacier from the common high winds.

Our last stop of the day was another waterfall, this time Kvernufoss, within a half mile of Skogafoss.  This one is tucked away into a canyon, so the foot traffic is minimal.

The video!

You can walk behind this waterfall, and not get all that wet…amazingly.  It provides for excellent perspectives.  From the appearance we could swear we were in Hawaii!

Video!

It was a full day, and we head east tomorrow to see more amazing stuff, hopefully with fewer busses!!  As always, thanks for reading!

We got our rental car and headed east, with the rest of the busloads of people, trying to see all that there is to see in the southern coast of Iceland (there is a LOT).  Along the way we took a slight detour…maybe an hour…to see yet another waterfall, this one called Hjalparfoss.  There was almost nobody else there…a huge departure from our experiences around Reykjavik.

Not overly tall, but quite beautiful.  It was worth the detour!

It was during this detour that I discovered our rental car, a plug-in hybrid, doesn’t have much in the way of fuel efficiency.  We were below a half tank already, in the middle of fricking nowhere.  Kim looked at the owners manual, and we discovered the fuel tank on this Jeep is only 9.6 gallons!  To top it off, they didn’t even give us a cable to plug the car in.  WTF?  Bottom line, I have been filling up at most every gas station we come across.

We checked into Umi Hotel, our home for 3 days, and had an excellent dinner.  The hotel is typical of Iceland, very modern looking and trying to fit in with the environment.  I highly suggest this hotel as a stopping point on the south coast.

We took a walk to the beach afterwards….damn that beach is a long ways off!  This is a typical black sand beach that we saw everywhere on the south side of Iceland.

The next morning we made the half hour trek to the ferry that would take us to Heimaey, one of the Westman Islands.  Below is one of the islands, with one home all on it’s lonesome (the little white dot on the left).  Man could I crank the tunes out there!!!

The entrance to the harbor is very dramatic, with cliffs looming over you the entire way.

I’ve gotta say, it’s been hard to get used to all of this beauty in one place!

On the way to the island I booked a tour for 2:30 with “EyjaTours“.  We got off the ferry, and when we walked into their office they advised they had two spots open for their 12:00 tour.  Boom, my luck is paying off!

Let me be clear, we have been on dozens and dozens of tours over the years, but this tour with Ebbi, the owner of the company, would be the best tour we have ever taken…the tour has set the bar for all future tours!  Ebbi was that amazing!  Here he is introducing himself by talking about a children’s book regarding Puffins.  He is a Puffin expert, a Westman Island native, and the most passionate, articulate and informed tour guide ever!

Ebbi made it clear that this tour is more about getting off the bus than just driving around.  Our first stop was at a spot where the local boys train to use the ropes on the cliffs for hunting eggs, one of their important local jobs, particularly in the past.

Here is a video of Ebbi performing for the crowd.

We visited the golf course, which just so happens to be in the caldera of a former volcano.  I rarely play golf, but I’d love to play here!

Ebbi advised that this is one the first places the Vikings landed in Iceland.  He also pointed out numerous puffins flying by.  They are terrible flyers.  Sorry, no photos yet.

During Covid, Ebbi rented this spot out from the local government.  This is a replica of the first Viking settlement in Iceland, based on the footprint found just 50 yards away from this site.  He has poured his blood, sweat and tears into this endeavor, and he hopes to make it a must-see attraction by the time he’s done.  Based on our experience, he’s already done it.

They have an actual Viking in the house…at least he said he was an actual Viking.  I’m not questioning him!

He took us to the extreme southern end of the island where the Puffins were in abundance!  They were flying back and forth in the area below, but you can’t really see them in the photo.  Still a beautiful spot.

Here is a field of the lovely Puffins.  Don’t worry, we have better photos coming up in a future blog post.  Getting close to these involved likely killing myself, and I opted out of that.

If you really want to see a Puffin up close, just look at the side of Ebbi’s mini-bus!

The last stop on the tour was the epicenter of the 1973 eruption on Heimaey, which struck without warning, causing the entire island to evacuate in the middle of the night.

You can hike to the top of the cinder cone of the volcano, or you can have Ebbi take your photo near the epicenter and pretend you hiked all the way.

This house, known as “Lucky 13”,  has an address of 13 on this unpronounceable street, and you can see from the photo that the lava stopped just short of the house.  There were numerous houses behind this one that weren’t so lucky.

There is a museum on the island, Eldheimar, where they basically dug a house buried in ash out and made a museum out of it.  It’s an interesting coverage of the events surrounding the eruption, and well worth the visit.

They even left a bunch of the ash inside the house.

This is what the landscape looked like after the eruption, at least for the houses and buildings that didn’t get burned down.

At the Viking house that Ebbi is working on, they sold an ale that was based on an old Viking recipe, and we of course bought some.  This is the brewery that made it.  I’m a sucker for a local brewery, and had to have a beer here before taking the ferry back.

This church on the island was donated by the Norwegians to commemorate the country’s conversion to the Lutheran faith.  I wish we had time to visit it as it looks gorgeous.

Here are the volcanic cones from 1973, from the ferry as we are heading back to the mainland.  The one on the right is the main cone of the volcano.  A grim reminder that we are at the whim of mother nature.

If you get to Iceland, make an effort to get to the Westman Islands, and definitely book with Ebbi and EyjaTours!  It was definitely a highlight of the trip for us!