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Iceland Day 4 - From Skógar to Skaftafell

Added: July 06, 2008

Tags: Iceland glacier lava mountains photos waterfalls
Tuesday 17th of June is finally sunny and beautiful. No wind is added bonus. I wish all our days were sunny here.

Whole bunch of waterfalls is planned for today, some are small, some tall, and at least 2 are famous. A word about waterfalls. Our plan contains about 16 waterfalls, but we probably have seen so many of them already. But most of them were small streams falling from cliff. Interesting sight, but we are getting to be used to that. Day after afternoon we will stop taking pictures of those anonymous completely :-)

Afternoon

After good lunch a nice icecream from petrol station we are on the road again. We are going to Skaftafell, but we need to do several stops, most of them around Kirkjubæjarklaustur.

Before mentioned haze is getting worse in some places, it is probably related to calm weather. Visibility is still high, but not-so far features are washed out.

Lava fields before Kirkjubæjarklaustur

Just a few pictures from road. Nice mossy lava fields.

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Fjarðrargljúfur Canyon

Fjarðrargljúfur is called "The Grand Canyon of Iceland". I have seen a few pictures, but reality is much better. We were not sure we will find it easily, because it is not shown on maps we had access to, we only knew is it before Kirkjubæjarklaustur, but in given distance there was road F206 to Laki. Fortunatelly there was road sign, and yes, it is side road from F206.

We also thought about using F206 and go to Fagrifoss, but F206 was closed further up. Maybe we were lucky, because we would need to cross river and funny one before getting there.

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Look back. Plains with lava are there.
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Attractions in Kirkjubæjarklaustur

Kirkjubæjarklaustur is more like orientation point for tourists than important village.

There are a few attractions here. Some of them we did not visit (or stopped to take photo of), but others we did.

Following 2 photos show Systrafoss waterfall.
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Kirkjugólf looks like man made paving. In reality, however, it is natural bunch of basalt colums that were weathered and finished by moss to look like being remains of old church. That gave it also its name.
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Let's get some action here. I am going show you how tourists' bus works. Do you see that small bus in the distance. It just came. NEXT PICTURE, PLEASE.
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It was full of tourists and they are approaching very fast. NEXT
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It is time to retreat. We do not stand any chance against them. It would not help us a lot to tell them we were here first :-)
I pity them, I am sure their photos are terrible, full of people they did not intend to take picture of.
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Foss á Síðu

One of my favourite waterfalls in Iceland. I really like those rock formations. It is about about 11km after Kirkjubæjarklaustur, visible from Ring Road and you cannot miss it.

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I needed to reshoot this panorama 3 times. There were always some shots blurry. I am definitely doing something wrong, because I have found more ruined panoramas at home. Probably loose horizontal axe on head, or shooting too hastily.
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Núpsstaður

Old turf-roofed farm and church are waiting a few more kilometres on Ring Road. I cannot get enough of these :-)

Zuzka is already there.
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Apart from church, this photo shows very well what I meant by haze and low visibility. That mountain (Lómagnúpur) is quite close and still very pale. Following morning we had been many kilometers from here and it could be seen much better.
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