Trip to Iceland day 11 / 2022-05-04

We had breakfast in the Framtíð Apartments cabin and got going again. The Framtíð hotel wasn't staffed very well as there wasn't someone available to return the cabin key. Eventually a cleaning person showed up and took our key.

This day was again going to be a long drive. The Iceland ring road is quite close to the Atlantic Ocean here in parts. The ring road is also close to the mountains and glaciers, there just is not a lot of space for the road here.

The weather was warmer and with a lot more sun than the day before. We were glad to have sunglasses while driving and on stops we could do with less layers.

Amfibious vehicle leaving Jökulsárlón Iceberg Lagoon

Bridge between Jökulsárlón Iceberg Lagoon and the ocean

Iceberg in Jökulsárlón Iceberg Lagoon

Ice from Jökulsárlón Iceberg Lagoon

Iceberg in Jökulsárlón Iceberg Lagoon

The main attraction for the day was a visit to Jökulsárlón Iceberg Lagoon where we parked and got a ticket for a tour on the lake. After we got the ticket we walked around looking at all the beauty from the side. This is a lake filled with ice and water from glaciers on one side and the water flows out to the ocean on the other side. This water flow is quite strong, making me think about the amount of ice entering the lake. There are also seals in the lake. The underwater ledge between the lake and the ocean keeps all the predators out that hunt seals. That ledge is also the reason the bridge in the ring road over the water flowing out to see is not threatened by the ice. Icebergs with 90% of their volume under water first have to break and melt to small sizes to leave the lake.

The tour on the lake was with an amphibious vehicle, first driving a bit over land and entering the lake to continue as a boat. We had a guide who seemed to make a set of standard jokes on the tour and they were a bit predictable and not so funny. But the views were great and the information we got was fine. Eventually global warming will put an end to this lake as an attraction.

We also walked across the ring road to the 'diamond beach' which is a black beach with lava sand where the smaller blocks of ice land on the beach after floating through the Jökulsárlón channel.

Fjallsárlón glacier lake

After the tour we stopped at the Fjallsárlón glacier lake for coffee. That lake also had tours, but in big rafts with people in survival gear.

We passed the Skeiðará Bridge Monument on the ring road, which is where a glacier flood once took out the bridge in the ring road. When we visited in 2006, we had to cross the new bridge. This time I was really surprised, the whole Skeiðará one-lane Bridge has been replaced by the road next to the side of it. I guess the increased traffic made the one-lane bridge delay traffic too much and the cost of rebuilding the road when the glacier flood happens is lower than the cost of rebuilding the bridge.

Our place for the evening was Lækjaborgir Guesthouse. Like other places we had received an e-mail with a door code to get in after payment via booking.com and we never saw a person handling things. This was a studio apartment so there was one not too big room with table, a small kitchen and the beds.

For dinner we went to Fosshótel Núpar. In Iceland there are a lot of 'Fosshótel' places which doesn't mean they are using Free and Open Source Software, but Foss is Icelandic for waterfall.