Water and ice

Day Three in Iceland saw us make our way east towards Vatnajokull, the nation’s largest icecap. The vast frozen zone covers more than 8300sq km, almost 13% of Iceland’s total landmass. To reach its southern edge we had to drive across several desolate, flat deltas of grey, snow-flecked glacial sand. These vast plains have been created by a web of glacial rivers and the occasional Jokulhlap, or glacial flash floods. These violent floods occur when volcanic activity melts a portion of the icecap sending unfathomable volumes of water rushing towards the sea.


The last such incident occurred in 1996 when the Grimsvotn eruption swept away much of the main road and three long bridges in a matter of hours. We stopped to explore a memorial of twisted bridge girders located a few miles from Skaftafell National Park. Once again we were reminded of the humbling power of nature.


This memorial was only one of several highlights during an invigorating scenic drive. After two days of being constantly awed nature’s beauty, it was difficult to imagine the sights getting any better. How wrong we were. Our first stop was Seljalandsfoss, a delicate high fall cascading over the edge of a rocky scarp that rises from the surrounding plain. I recall this fall featured as a checkpoint for the television reality show, Race Around the World.


This was one of many falls we encountered that day. Perhaps the most dramatic of all was Skogafoss. A 62 metre curtain of water set in narrow, rocky crag. At its base the fall’s frigid spray had settled as a rugged plateau of ice across the departing gravel bed. Once again, we had much of the scene to ourselves for much of the time.


Perhaps the day’s most dramatic experience was something neither Garry or I had foreseen in all our months of planning for this vacation. A few kilometres past Skogafoss we turned off the highway onto a bumpy, gravel road that wound its way up a river valley towards Solheimajokull. This is a narrow glacier carving off the nearby Myrdalsjokull icecap. I recalled walking to the edge of Fox Glacier in New Zealand more than 15 years ago and was keen to repeat the experience.


We parked our four-wheel drive about 200 metres short of the glacier’s edge. As we retraced the path of a rivulet flowing from the ice, we came upon a icy-blue cavern that had been carved from the glacier face. We just had to explore it. Translucent blue walls led us into a larger cavern where large, smooth blocks of ice sat brooding while rays of sunlight shone down through an opening in the ice above. As was becoming the norm we had the entire scene to ourselves. Pure magic!

Read on for more private moments in Iceland.