Iceland ‘95 (Part 3) – The Mýrdalsjökull Glacier Tour

Three of four!!

The Mýrdalsjökull Glacier Tour is another long one at around 9 hours but well worth it. Unfortunately there is a lack of pictures in this section but the weather was not the best and very few of the photographs turned out.
The tour takes you along the south coast stopping at various sites eventually reaching Mýrdalsjökull and having a go on snowmobiles on the top!

The first stop after leaving Reykjavík was a beach right on the south coast with the nearest land thousands of miles south. The beach was made up of small black stones and the freezing wind blowing off the North Atlantic throwing them at you made it the most painfull beach I’ve ever stood on!

Seljalandsfoss

Further along the coast our next stop was at Seljalandsfoss, a waterfall 40m high. On arrival the impression was it was a bit skinny but that was more than made up for because there is the opportunity to follow a path round behind the falls, offering a seldom seen view. The path is very easy to walk round and you don’t get to wet depending which way the wind is blowing.

Skógafoss

Another waterfall, Skógafoss was next and this is one spectacular sight. 60m high and definetely not skinny. The thing that struck me most was the noise, there was an awful lot of water coming over that cliff. There’s the chance to get right up close and also a path you can climb to get a view from above. Some very welcome WC facilities are also here, make use while you can. :-)

Mýrdalsjökull

We arrived at Mýrdalsjökull, transferred to a 4WD vehicle and started a long journey up to the snowmobile base. Here we were kitted out in extremely warm clothes, in fact we got the whole outfit – socks, boots, protective suit, gloves and crash helmet. Because of the mild summer, the glacier had receded so it was back into the 4WD for the trip to the top. At the top, things were looking good, we got our chat about the vehicles, given all the safety information and started up ready to go. Thirty seconds later the weather closed in and all you could see (if you were lucky) was the guy in front, so our spectacular glacier top tour was relegated to following a tail light through sleet and snow at about 5 mph. I’m going to do this properly when I go back! Back to the base where we were TOLD how amazing the scenery on the top was and warmed up with strong black coffee.

On the way back, a stop was made at a ‘finger’ of the glacier which is moving towards the sea at the rate of 20m a year, quite fast in glacial terms. We were able to walk right up to the face of it and see ice that was thousands of years old. It was all beatifully clear and pollution free with just a light coating of dust from volcanic eruptions. Standing there at the front and actually seeing it ‘in action’, all the stuff learned in high school geography started to make sense!

It was then back to Reykjavík with some not very clear photos and a resolve to return and repeat the tour in better weather.