A minibus collected us from the hotel and took us to meet the main tour bus like the Golden Circle tour. Unlike that tour we wern't packed in the bus so the whole day was better. Our first stop was at one of Iceland's oldest houses. This was built in 1765 and still has its original wooden roof. When Denmark lifted its trading monopoly with Iceland in the 19th century Iceland started trading with Great Britain. The British paid for Icelandic goods with English currency so Iceland sent a committee to England to see what they could buy with the money. They found that corrugated iron made an ideal roofing material which is still in use today.
We then moved on to the Skògafoss waterfall via a quick stop at a farm nestled in a glacial valley. Skógafoss has an impressive 60 metre drop but the bottom of it is hidden behind clouds of spray. Legend has it that the areas first settler hid a chest of gold in a cave behind the falls.
The glacier is Mýrdalsjökull which we saw across the sea from Heimaey yesterday.
We then travelled to the head of the Mýrdalsjökull glacier, the place where it is melting. I know that glaciers pick up lot of dirt during the thousands of years they spend grinding down the sides of mountains but the snow and ice was very gray, much dirtier then I had imagined that it would be. I also managed to drop my camera on a rock but it seemed to survive.
They bottle and sell this stuff - I hope they filter it first!
At least I didn't drop my camera into this meltwater stream
We then moved on to the town on Vík. Vík means "bay" in English and there are many placenames in English ending in the equivalent "-wick". We had lunch on a beach composed of black volcanic ash instead of sand. I picked up several small but interesting lava rocks that are now adorning the bottom of my fishtank. You should note that it's illegal in Iceland to remove rocks from a National Park, but this wasn't, so it's OK!
After lunch the tour turned back towards Reykjavík but we visited several locations it passed on the way. At Dyrhòlaey there is a spectacular rock arch formed by erosion.
Small boats can sail through the arch
The last stop of the day is at the Seljalandsfoss waterfall. The falling water has eroded underneath the falls so you can actually walk behind the cascading water.
The bus dropped us back near the hotel. We had planned in having dinner in our favourite Kaffi Vin but it was full. We found another place called LA Cafe above a nightclub further up Laugavegur. Despite being more like a pub it served very nice food and I enjoyed a pint (OK, a half-litre) of the local Viking lager.