Reykjavik; Sunday, 05 May, 2019

A relatively early start to the day as we were booked on a day tour to the south of Iceland and the hotel pickups were due to start at 08:30, so we had breakfast almost as soon as they started and left the hotel just after 8am to walk to the bus stop – getting there with what would have been plenty of time if the shuttle hadn’t been running super early, so it was pulling in almost at the same time as we arrived.

The shuttle bus did a circuit round the centre of the city to pick up guests for the various early morning tours, and then headed out to the bus depot on the edge of town. There we transferred into the minibus for the days tour.

We set off out of Reykjavik and drove along the main number 1 road, which is the islands circular road, heading South and East out of the capital and into the mountains outside of the city. We drove for about 90 minutes through an ever-changing landscape, past Geothermal power stations, high pressure steam vents rising from the ground, and in places rows of greenhouses powered by the steam. We crossed a number of impressive rivers that were thundering down from the glaciers in the high central part of the island before finally coming to our first stop of the day in Hvolsvöllur, there we had a quick cup of coffee and a comfort break before continuing East.

We had a brief stop on the road beneath the mass of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano, which had caused so much trouble to air traffic in 2010. Where we stopped there was a small photo display which showed some of the iconic pictures of the eruption which had been taken from the spot where we were standing, then it was back onto the bus and along the coast to our first main stop of the day at the Skógafoss waterfall.

After a good 45-minute stop there to take in the power of the waterfall, and the spectacular multiple rainbows being caused by the spray, we hopped back on the bus and continued along the coast to our next stop in the town of Vik. This was our lunch stop, and also the furthest East on the tour. In the town there was easy access down onto it’s black sand beach – which was very impressive, so there was enough time to have a look at that before we headed back to the bus and continued round the headland to the much larger and more impressive black sand beach and basalt columns at Reynisfjara.

Alongside the impressive beach and columns here the Atlantic pounds the beach with very impressive, and highly dangerous, waves – so we all were keeping well back from the shore. There were also good views down the long black sand beach to the sea arch at Dyrhólaey,

From the beach we headed back inland a bit to the nose of the Sólheimajökull glacier and it’s glacial lagoon located at the foot of the mountains and volcanos that make up the centre of the country. From the glacier it was a short drive back along the road to our final stop of the day at the Seljalandsfoss volcano.

Whilst the volume of water coming over the Seljalandsfoss waterfall is less than at the Skógafoss falls, it’s more impressive as there is a pathway up and round the back of the waterfall, allowing you to stand behind the falls in a cave underneath the lip of the falls.

From there it was a long two hour drive back along the main road into Reykjavik and drop offs at the different hotels. We got off in the centre of the city by the culture centre and walked down the hill to our hotel where we freshened up before heading out for dinner in a very nice Icelandic/Spanish fusion tapas bar.