I chose this quote from Stephen Markley because it couldn't be more true, driving around Iceland is an experience in itself, there are so many things to see that you are forced to stop the car every 5 minutes and prepare to be stunned.
This post is the 2nd part of my trip to Iceland and if you have missed the first one, here is the link in case you would like to check it.
Visiting Iceland - Saxhóll, Kirkjufell and Game of Thrones
We left our hostel early in the morning and after a healthy breakfast we got on our Ford Kuga and we started driving with Djúpalónssandur as a direction.
The sky was quite cloudy, but luckily it wasn't raining or snowing... but as we learned to our cost that day, never be fooled by the weather in Iceland, an apparently quiet day can turn into a few hours and make you regret not being indoors...
But let's proceed in order. Our first stop was Djúpalónssandur, an arch-shaped bay with dark cliffs and black sand, located on the Snæfellsnes peninsula in western Iceland.
Here we stayed for most of the morning. The area is very large and the beach, in particular, is very special, being composed of black sand, which for me, at least, was something I had never seen before.
Iceland is a land rich in volcanic activity. The black color of the beach is due to hot lava from dormant volcanoes, which initially floats on the beach, only to cool and solidify when it hits the cold water.
The view of the ocean from the beach is something wonderful. The contrast between the black of the beach, the white of the foam of the waves, and the blue of the water are breathtaking.
We stayed for half an hour on the beach admiring the waves that were hitting the beach.
We continued to explore the area for some hours and we found some really interesting places. Of course, since I am a speleologist, I couldn't help but visit a cave there 💪.
A nice group selfie inside the cave.
Then from the cave, we climbed up a little and found this amazing spot from where it was possible to admire the ocean from above.
Then we left the Djúpalónssandur peninsula and we headed towards our next destination: Geyser.
But of course, before arriving there we made some intermediate pitstops. Now you understand why I told that the quote I used at the beginning of the post is so true.
First of all, we stopped in the Barnafossar fall. As we discovered Barnafossar means "Child Falls", following a local legend, two boys one day were left home by the parent that went to church. The boys decided to follow them but on the way to the church, while they were crossing a wooden bridge, they fell in the falls and drowned.
While we were in Barnafossar the weather started changing, it started snowing (and things were only going to get worse from that point onwards...)
We then moved to Öxarárfoss waterfall, located in the Þingvellir National Park in Southwest Iceland. The waterfall flows out of the river Öxará and is one of the main attractions of the park. The park itself forms together with Gullfoss waterfall and the Geyser Geothermal Area (our next two destinations), the so-called Golden Circle.
We stopped in this area for an hour approximately, exploring the surroundings and doing stupid things 😅.
As the snowfall began to become more and more consistent, the landscape turned increasingly white, making it a truly magical landscape 😍.
Then we decided to come back to the car in order to move towards Geysir. But then Thor decided to pay us a visit and unleashed a mighty storm upon us.
The biggest problem, apart from the indecent amount of snow that was falling, was the strong gusts of wind, which of course moved the snow horizontally against our faces... and it was not a pleasant feeling at all. The best way to walk was to keep your head down so you wouldn't get hit.
But without giving an inch we managed to get to the car. And here a very difficult decision awaited us. Our accommodation for the night was a few hours' drive from where we were, but we still had two places to visit before heading back. The main problem, however, was that with the amount of snow that was falling, the roads would soon be impassable.
The safest solution would have been to head for our accommodation while we had the chance... but how many times would we have to go back to Iceland again? And we had other things to see in the next few days that we couldn't go back to...
So we decided to go to Geysir at our own risk.
By driving very carefully we managed to get to our destination... and we realized that we were the only people there (actually given the weather conditions it was quite predictable).
The fact that we were the only ones in the park was really cool, and we didn't regret our choice at all...
In the geothermal area, there are many geysers, but the one we were looking for was the main one, Geysir, which erupts about every 15 minutes and can reach a height of about 10 meters.
Now given the heavy snowfall it was really difficult to understand where we were and also reading the signs was really difficult... So we had been in search mode for a few minutes when to my left I hear .... BOOOOOOOM
a loud roar, I turn around and see a jet of hot water coming from underground and arriving at an incredible speed ... there it is, the Geysir, instead of finding us, it had found us before...
I am sorry for not having more photos to show but using the camera with that conditions was really difficult 😅
But our day wasn't still over, we had a final destination to reach: the Gullfoss Falls. And here the weather situation was even worst than before.
As we walked, my foot sank above the knee into the snow.
Obviously, the access was closed, given the conditions ... but do you think this stopped us? obviously not, we climbed over and went to see (or at least we tried, since with all the snow falling it was really a challenge to see something) the waterfall up close.
And now the most difficult part of the whole day awaited us. Drive to our accommodation. In the meantime, obviously, the snow had not stopped falling, on the contrary, it had increased the intensity (as you can see in the gifs below).
Driving in these conditions was really on the verge of impossible.
The road was completely covered with snow and there was no distinguishable white stripe of demarcation;
It was therefore not possible to distinguish where the road ended and where the side part began. The only way was to look at the yellow stakes positioned at the edges at certain distances and which being quite high were not completely covered by snow. But even using the poles it was still difficult to understand the direction since they were not always at visible distances, and therefore for some instances of time, we had to drive at random without knowing if the direction was the right one.
On the street, we saw lots of cars that were overturned on their side. Most were small-displacement machines. Honestly, even today I don't understand who can go on vacation to Iceland and rent a Toyota Yaris ... it is equivalent to saying that you want to commit suicide. In fact, when we saw the locals, they were above these huge trucks, where the wheels (which were spiked of course) were as high as our entire car.
But despite all of the difficulties, we were able to survive these difficult moments, and the snowstorm started slowing down at the end, leaving behind a truly wonderful landscape.
Conclusion
This was our second day in Iceland and it was amazing as the first one, maybe even more due to the snowstorm. Being able to visit all of these amazing places when no one else was there was really priceless (although we had to risk our lives to get there 😅).
And this wasn't even the most dangerous thing that we did on our vacation in this amazing country. But this is a story for the next post 😉.
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Thnks a lot for the upvote @curie
So beautiful! I don't think I can cross that hanging bridge.
Yeah that was really scary
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Thanks a lot @LivingUKTaiwan for the upvote.
That saying is so true from what you have share din this post such spectacular beauty
Thanks @tattoodjay 😊
Amazing 😍!
thanks 😊
you made a beautiful post! This land looks like a beautiful place, but very hard to live in.
Thanks for the comment @stefano.massari, yeah Iceland is an amazing place to visit but the conditions are really extreme (but this part of its beauty)
The snowstorm seems quite heavy on your pictures and while you are driving in the car. Did you encounter any difficulties on the street aside from the overturned other cheap rental cars?
The main problem was the presence of ice and even though we had a 4x4 car it was really difficult to not let the car skid on the road (but also this was part of the adventure 💪)
Yay! 🤗
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You're right, I visited some islands before and there were so many things to see, which made me stop many time during the ride around the island. That one looks so cold but very beautiful.