16 - Alan's visit - day 2

Dear readers,

Today we went on our first road trip! We will be travelling for three days and the longest distance will be today, its 450 km to the to our apartment where we are staying the night (in Höfn). This will take around 5/6 hours so I have planned some sights to stop at along the way. The first place we stopped was called Fjaðrárgljúfur canyon. I had already been here once before but it is just an easy stop on the way and a great place to stop on your way south. You can walk along the canyon as well for a bit and when you reach the end, there is a

little (frozen) waterfall.

Next up we went to some rock formations called 'Kirkjugólf'. These rocks are pretty awesome and nothing like anything I've ever seen before. Kirkjugólf means 'Church Floor'. There has never been a church there but the site looks as though it's man made. These columnar basalt, eroded and shaped by glaciers and waves. Columnar basalt is formed when lava flow gets cooled and contraction forces build up. This results in the six sided formation of the columns. Kirkjugólf is a protected natural monument.

After driving on for a while, we passed the beautiful glacier named 'Fjallsárlón'. We decided to try out the new camera, which resulted in some cool shots! Glaciers are so beautiful, I am really going to miss them when I will be back in the Netherlands. Especially the colour palette is gorgeous. My favorite is the light blue colour of the ice.

After taking some pictures (a bit too much, haha), we drove on to Skaftafell National Park. I REALLY wanted to come back to this place. Last time I was here it was already starting to get pretty dark so I couldn't see the stunning 'Svartifoss' waterfall properly. Alan didn't have any crampons so I ended up dragging him up the mountain because he kept slipping away. It was pretty hilarious to be honest. The waterfall was absolutely stunning and I think this National park and its waterfalls are a must-see during your stay in Iceland.

Svartifoss is 20 metres tall, and black columnar basalt formations

beautifully frame the waterfall and give it its name, Black Fall. Svartifoss cannot be seen from the road, so you need to hike up to it (about 1,5 km). You can walk straight down to Svartifoss to see it up-close. Ok, one more fact which I find pretty cool: the hexagonal basalt columns at Svartifoss inspired the State Architect when he designed Hallgrímskirkja church, which is one of the landmarks of Reykjavík - Iceland's capital city.

While walking back to the car (and slipping a LOT!), the sun was setting which gave us a stunning view. We were really enjoying our trip so far, but it was starting to get dark and we still had around 2 hours to get to our appartment so we decided to start our drive up to

Höfn. On the way we saw reindeer, which was so nice! It felt like we were on the North Pole near Santa's house!

After about an hour of driving, the weather started to turn: it got dark and very windy. This resulted in a snow blizzard. The snow got blown onto the roads and we could hardly see the car in front of us (only the lights sometimes). I knew it could be dangerous to drive in February but I didn't know blizzards were THIS scary. I had put my seat all the way back and covered my face with my coat because I didn't want to see where we were driving. Alan laughed at me of course but he also made sure we arrived safe and soundly at our first stop, which I was very grateful for as I really thought we wouldn't make it!

In the evening, I made dinner for us and we played some card games

with two German dudes who were staying in the same appartment as us (Jannik and Steven). We ended up having a lot of fun together and decided to drive to the same place together the next day. You can read about this in my next blog!

Love,

Camille