Day 82 Iceland - Icebergs, glaciers, a boat trip and the perfect camping spot

Day 82 Iceland - Icebergs, glaciers, a boat trip and the perfect camping spot

No colour enhancement  - as it was 

The rain had cleared up overnight and with everyone asleep I climbed up out of the valley and took a path on and up towards the glacier – after an hour of half running and walking I turned still a couple of Km short of the ice. Always easier to appreciate where you are when you are coming back down rather than climbing up; it’s a  vast landscape compared to our own in England.....mile after mile of valley, glacier and mountains.

J and K trying to kill themselves

We packed and then all took a short walk before getting away and down the track just before midday. 

Huge huge alluvial plains 

The next 160 Km was a stunning drive passing small farms tucked under the cliffs and then moving on to long sections of straight road through a mixture of vast lava fields and alluvial plains.

Jack lying on the spongy lichen covered lava fields

There are many bridges, all single span with passing places on the long ones, that cross grey silt filled rivers in full flow.


As we moved further east the glacial fingers from the huge 100 Km wide Vatnajokull glacier creep almost down to the main road.

C at his 1st glacier

We take a number of dirt track detours to go and see them properly before arriving at 6 pm at Jokulsarlon.. 

The lake at Jokulsarlon is famed for having been used in 2 James Bond films and it is fairly obvious why when you get to see it.

It is pretty much a circular lake about 6km across and it is growing by 100m every year, global warming in action.

Ice on the beach

At one side the glacier ends its journey breaking off and falling into the lake to form thousands of icebergs that break up and slowly melt.

bergs floating off to sea

For a few, they manage to float across to the exit of the lake; blue, black and white icebergs of all different shapes and sizes fill the lake. Just 400m from the exit of the lake is the sea and a 40 m wide channel connects it to the sea, on an ebbing tide the icebergs flow out into the sea. Some are washed back on the nearby shore for what is a very odd but beautiful sight

We get the last but one tour onto the lake in a land/sea vehicle. Each boat has a ‘spotter’ in a RIB who finds an iceberg free route by going directly in front of our boat or alternatively, makes and ice free route by using his small boat to push an iceberg out of the way.

Susan's head on another's body

The bergs only show their top 10% above the surface and so it is the bottom 90% that they are worried about and even with the ‘spotter’ our boat hits some pretty crunching big lumps. They hand around an 800 year old lump of pure ice and all in all its a damn good trip.

K's shovel hands sneak in

 No padded suits this time as per the whale watching but a proper life jacket is provided for all.

There are seals in the channel to the sea and the arctic terns are continuously diving so the fish pickings must be rich. We make our way down to where the lake flows into the sea and we spend some time on the beach watching the breakers roll and break the huge lumps of ice up on the tide line.

5 minutes down the road and we turn off on a track that leads to the back of the beach. We are miles from anyone or anything. There is no wind, the sun is setting over the glacier and it’s pretty much perfect....

Day 82 Paglir (I) to Jojulsarlon (I)    166 Km      Total  11785 Km