Jokulsarlon

Our fourth day in Iceland was scheduled to be dominated by a lengthy drive to Reykjavik. Over the previous three days, we’d driven almost 400 kilometres east, a journey we now had to retrace. We’d stopped overnight at Hotel Skaftafell, a simple facility sitting in the middle of nowhere. The nearest town of any note was almost 70 kilometres away.

This desolate area is also home to many of Iceland’s most dramatic glaciers. We decided to explore at least four of these before turning back to Reykjavik. Our first destination was one we’d been anticipating since booking our Iceland vacation. Jokulsarlon is a 600-metre deep, 17 sq km lagoon at the base of Breidamerkurjokull, a broad glacier sweeping down from the Vatnajokull icecap. It’s renowned for its jostling, blue icebergs that carve off the glacier and drift silently for years before being swept out to sea through a short, narrow, fast-flowing channel.

The day had dawned drab and overcast, with regular snow flurries falling from the sky. However, as we neared Breidamerkurjokull, the clouds parted, bathing the approaching ice in dazzling sunlight. This break in the weather held the entire time we were at Jokulsarlon. Once again, nature lived up to the hype of every tour guide we’d read. The lagoon was splendid.

Unfortunately, much of it was frozen, and thus offered fewer icebergs than normal. However, several dramatic blue slabs of ice could be seen close to shore, making for a scene equal to any I’m sure one would experience in Antarctica. Garry and I stood alone at the edge of the lagoon for almost an hour, soaking up the scene. We then drove down to the nearby beach, colloquially known as Diamond Beach, where stranded icebergs and small, translucent ice shards greeted an ocean glinting in the sunlight.  

These ice diamonds are the remnants of bergs which have escaped the lagoon. Their escape route, a narrow outlet channel called Jökulsá, is officially a 600-metre long river. This truncated river is traversed by a simple 90-metre long concrete suspension bridge built in 1967. It’s part of the nation's famous ring road and is literally the only link to Reykjavik for towns further east. Without it they’d have to travel hundreds of kilometres north, turn inland and, take a less developed road through the interior. Looking back at this desolate bridge, you can see just how vulnerable Iceland's major transport links really are.

As we retraced our steps, we turned off the highway several times to catch remote glimpses of more glaciers tumbling down from Vatnajokull. Perhaps the most dramatic of these was Svinafellsjokull. This glacier sits in a steep ravine and consists of the bluest ice we saw during our entire vacation. Its edge was also fractured by deep, bold blue crevasses.