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Iceland Photo Gallery - 4. Vatnajokull and Jökulsárlón

In July and August 2006, we traveled to Dubai, Mount Kailash and Guge Kingdom in Tibet, Muscat, Iceland and a brief stop in London.

Iceland 09 01 Flaajokull From Near Hofn Vatnajokull is the largest glacier in Europe and covers approximately 8% of Iceland. From the dome of the glacier, valley glaciers descend into the lowlands. Beneath the ice, great active volcanoes lie hidden, among them Oraefajokull and Grimsvotn. Hvannadalshnukur in Oraefajokull is Iceland’s highest peak at 2110m. From just past Hofn and the road west we could see four glaciers at once. Here is one of them - Flaajokull.

Iceland 09 01 Flaajokull From Near Hofn

Iceland 09 02 Glacier Descending from Vatnajokull Here is another glacier falling from Vatnajokull to the valley below.

Iceland 09 02 Glacier Descending from Vatnajokull

Iceland 09 03 Hoffellsjokull to the right As we continued to drive, Hoffellsjokull came into clearer view – to the right.

Iceland 09 03 Hoffellsjokull to the right

Iceland 09 04 Hoffellsjokull Hoffellsjokull is a typical large outlet glacier on the eastern side of Vatnajökull, ending partly on land and partly in an ice-filled lake.

Iceland 09 04 Hoffellsjokull

Iceland 09 05 Flaajokull The Flaajokull glacier has prominent black patterns caused by volcanic ash (Tephra).

Iceland 09 05 Flaajokull

Iceland 09 06 Flaajokull Here is another view of Flaajokull as we continued to drive along the Ring Road.

Iceland 09 06 Flaajokull

Iceland 09 07 Skalafellsjokull and Heinabergsjokull Two glaciers descend towards the valley - on the left Skalafellsjokull and the right Heinabergsjokull. Just 16km from the Ring Road on the upper reaches of the Skalafellsjokull glacier is Joklasel (840m), a mountain-hotel where you can take expensive tours onto Vatnajokull.

Iceland 09 07 Skalafellsjokull and Heinabergsjokull

Iceland 09 08 Heinabergsjokull The Heinabergsjokull glacier dams Vatnsdalur valley, forming a lagoon, which drains out regularly.

Iceland 09 08 Heinabergsjokull

Iceland 09 09 Breidamerkurjokull As we neared Jökulsárlón, we had an early view of the Breidamerkurjokull glacier.

Iceland 09 09 Breidamerkurjokull

Iceland 10 01 Jokulsarlon Long View The 200m-deep Jökulsárlón (Glacial River Lagoon) lagoon is crammed with beautiful floating luminous blue icebergs calved from the glacier Breidamerkurjokull. The lagoon has a small river mouth flowing into the nearby ocean. Jökulsárlón has been used in various films in the recent years, including James Bond’s A View to a Kill (1985) and Die Another Day (2002), and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001). Here is a long range view to the north.

Iceland 10 01 Jokulsarlon Long View

Iceland 10 02 Jokulsarlon Closer View You can take a boat trip on the lagoon and float among the icebergs. Supposedly the water is so cold that if you fell overboard you could expect to survive at most 2 minutes.

Iceland 10 02 Jokulsarlon Closer View

Iceland 10 03 Jokulsarlon North East View Some icebergs at Jökulsárlón were black, some white, and some a beautiful shade of blue. Here is a view to the north east with Fjallsjokull on the horizon.

Iceland 10 03 Jokulsarlon North East View

Iceland 10 04 Jokulsarlon Icebergs A beautiful iceberg floats gently in the Jökulsárlón lagoon, after breaking of from Breidamerkurjokull where it lived for over a thousand years.

Iceland 10 04 Jokulsarlon Icebergs

Iceland 10 05 Jokulsarlon Icebergs A beautiful iceberg floats gently in the Jökulsárlón lagoon. The lagoon is so clear we can even see the part of the iceberg below the surface.

Iceland 10 05 Jokulsarlon Icebergs

Iceland 10 06 Jokulsarlon Icebergs A beautiful iceberg floats gently in the Jökulsárlón lagoon, completing its cycle of change back to water.

Iceland 10 06 Jokulsarlon Icebergs

Iceland 10 07 Jokulsarlon Icebergs A beautiful iceberg floats gently in the Jökulsárlón lagoon, floating towards the ocean.

Iceland 10 07 Jokulsarlon Icebergs

Iceland 10 08 Fjallsjokull Long View Fjallsjokull flows down from the east side of the Örćfajökull glacier. A lagoon has formed next to Fjallsjokull.

Iceland 10 08 Fjallsjokull Long View

Iceland 10 09 Fjallsjokull Close Up This close up photo of Fjallsjokull shows how steeply it falls from Vatnajokull.

Iceland 10 09 Fjallsjokull Close Up

Iceland 10 10 Kviarjokull Long View We parked just off the Ring Road to the west of Jökulsárlón, and walked a short distance to this beautiful view of Kviarjokull, a glacier snaking down from Örćfajökull.

Iceland 10 10 Kviarjokull Long View

Iceland 10 11 Kviarjokull Close Up With Hvannadalshnukur Kviarjokull falls from Örćfajökull with the tallest point in Iceland above. An official measurement of Hvannadalshnúkur completed in August 2005 established its height as 2,109.6 m (previously set as 2,119 m).

Iceland 10 11 Kviarjokull Close Up With Hvannadalshnukur

Iceland 11 01 Litla-Hof Farmhouse We stayed in a very comfortable and affordable farmhouse in Litla-Hof.

Iceland 11 01 Litla-Hof Farmhouse

Iceland 11 02 Litla-Hof Room Our farmhouse at Litla-Hof has a private entrance and very comfortable rooms. Skaftafell National Park and Jökulsárlón are nearby.

Iceland 11 02 Litla-Hof Room

Iceland 11 03 Litla-Hof Long View Pete and I went for a walk in Litla-Hof and scrambled a steep hill behind the farmhouse - great fun.

Iceland 11 03 Litla-Hof Long View

Iceland 11 04 Litla-Hof Big Rock As we walked through the small Litla-Hof village, Pete spied a big rock just, eh, sitting there not caring if the weather had turned from sunny to cloudy at all.

Iceland 11 04 Litla-Hof Big Rock

Iceland 11 05 Litla-Hof Turf Church Long View At Litla-Hof (Little Temple) is a peat-brick and wooden church on the 1343 foundations of a previous church and a Viking temple dedicated to Por. It was reconstructed in 1883 and now sits pleasantly in a thicket of birch and ash, with flowers growing on the grassy roof.

Iceland 11 05 Litla-Hof Turf Church Long View

Iceland 11 06 Litla-Hof Turf Church Inside The turf church at Litla-Hof was the last church built in the old style. It is one of six churches still standing, which are preserved as historical monuments.

Iceland 11 06 Litla-Hof Turf Church Inside

Iceland 11 07 Litla-Hof Turf Church Roof A graveyard? No, this is the top of the turf church at Litla-Hof.

Iceland 11 07 Litla-Hof Turf Church Roof

Iceland 12 01 Skaftafell Svartifoss Long View Bordered by Örćfajökull to the east and Skeidarárjökull to the west, Skaftafell National Park is Iceland’s largest with barren lowland sandurs, highland slopes brimming with wildflowers, sharp mountain ridges, and glaciers. From the visitor’s centre we walked on the easy track for 30 minutes to Svartifoss, a lovely waterfall flanked by unusual overhanging basalt columns.

Iceland 12 01 Skaftafell Svartifoss Long View

Iceland 12 02 Skaftafell Svartifoss Close Up The black basalt columns of Svartifoss (black falls) have provided inspiration for Icelandic architects, most visibly in the Hallgrímskirkja church in Reykjavík.

Iceland 12 02 Skaftafell Svartifoss Close Up

Iceland 12 03 Skaftafell Kristinartindar As we continued our hike from Svartifoss, the weather started to clear and gave us a great view to the north of Kristinartindar, a mountain with two peaks at 979m and 1126m.

Iceland 12 03 Skaftafell Kristinartindar

Iceland 12 04 Skaftafell Skeidararjokull As I looked towards the west, I could see the massive 20km-wide crescent edge of Skeidarárjökull (the wandering river glacier) as it drops 1000m from the top of Vatnajökull. It is Europe’s largest valley glacier, and is responsible for Iceland’s largest sandur, the Skeidarársandur. Here you’ll encounter a flat expanse of grey-black sands, some fierce winds and fast-flowing glacial rivers the colour of used dishwater.

Iceland 12 04 Skaftafell Skeidararjokull

Iceland 12 05 Skaftafell Skaftafellsjokull Looking North It took us 35 minutes to hike from Svartifoss to Sjónarnipa at the top of Skaftafellsheidi, with a great view looking north up the Skaftafellsjökull towards Örćfajökull.

Iceland 12 05 Skaftafell Skaftafellsjokull Looking North

Iceland 12 06 Skaftafell Skaftafellsjokull Mouth I turned my head and looked at the mouth of the Skaftafellsjökull from Sjónarnipa, with the glacier melting and forming its own little lake.

Iceland 12 06 Skaftafell Skaftafellsjokull Mouth

Iceland 12 07 Skaftafell Skaftafellsjokull Looking Across I looked across Skaftafellsjökull and up to see the tallest point in Iceland peaking over the intervening ridge.

Iceland 12 07 Skaftafell Skaftafellsjokull Looking Across

Iceland 12 08 Skaftafell Hvannadalshnukur Örćfajökull, the southernmost spur of Vatnajökull, forms a separate icecap over the immense Örćfi caldera. The nunatak (mountain peak) protruding from above Örćfi’s crater rim is known as Hvannadalshnúkur, which at 2110m is the highest point in Iceland. From Sjónarnipa it took 50 minutes to walk back to the Skatafell visitor centre.

Iceland 12 08 Skaftafell Hvannadalshnukur

Iceland 12 09 Skaftafell Svinafellsjokull Long View The Svinafellsjökull glacier is just over the ridge from Skaftafellsjökull. This was the area where some scenes in Batman Begins were filmed.

Iceland 12 09 Skaftafell Svinafellsjokull Long View

Iceland 12 10 Skaftafell Svinafellsjokull Close Up We walked along the terminal moraine of Svinafellsjökull for a close up view of the blue glacier ice.

Iceland 12 10 Skaftafell Svinafellsjokull Close Up

Iceland 12 11 Skaftafell Svinafellsjokull Wildflowers Wildflowers grow on the terminal moraine next to Svinafellsjökull.

Iceland 12 11 Skaftafell Svinafellsjokull Wildflowers

Iceland 12 12 Skaftafell Svinafellsjokull Wildflowers Wildflowers grow on the terminal moraine next to Svinafellsjökull.

Iceland 12 12 Skaftafell Svinafellsjokull Wildflowers

Iceland 12 13 Skaftafell Jokulhlaup Memorial The Ring Road across Skeidarársandur, built in 1974, was the last bit of the National Highway to be constructed. Long gravel dykes have been strategically positioned to channel floodwaters away from the highly susceptible artery. They did little good, however, when in late 1996 the Ring Road bridges were washed away like matchsticks by the massive glacial lake flood (jökulhlaup) released by the Grimsvötn eruption. The glacier melts because of geothermal heat and water collects beneath the ice, which drains every few years, causing great outburst floods. There’s a memorial of twisted bridge girders and an information board just west of Skaftafell national Park.

Iceland 12 13 Skaftafell Jokulhlaup Memorial

Iceland 13 01 Vik Beneath a brooding ridge on a black-sand beach, Vík means the Bay of the Marshy Valley, and is the rainiest spot in Iceland.

Iceland 13 01 Vik

Iceland 13 02 Vik View Of Reynisdrangur The most famous sight in the Vik area is the cluster of sea stacks at Reynisdrangur, which rise from the ocean at the west end of Vík’s black-sand beach. The highest stack is 66m tall. These sea stacks are said to be petrified trolls caught by the sun as they were trying to drag a boat ashore.

Iceland 13 02 Vik View Of Reynisdrangur

Iceland 13 03 Dyrholaey Rock Arch We turned off the Ring Road on R218 just after Vík and drove about 5km to the coast at Dyrhólaey. From the top of the cliff I had a great view of the large rock arch at Dyrhólaey, Iceland’s southernmost headland.

Iceland 13 03 Dyrholaey Rock Arch

Iceland 13 04 Dyrholaey Puffins The steep cliffs at Dyrhólaey are full of puffins.

Iceland 13 04 Dyrholaey Puffins

Iceland 13 05 Dyrholaey Puffin The steep cliffs at Dyrhólaey are full of puffins.

Iceland 13 05 Dyrholaey Puffin

Iceland 13 06 Skogafoss Just off the Ringroad, Skógafoss tumbles 62m over a rocky scarp, kicking up vast sheets of mist. Peter and Charlotte climbed the stairs to the top.

Iceland 13 06 Skogafoss

Iceland 13 07 Seljalandsfoss Just off the Ringroad, the beautiful high narrow Seljalandsfoss tumbles over a rocky scarp into a deep green splash pool. This wonderful waterfall routinely creates rainbows in the afternoon sunshine, and you can walk around behind the tumbling water on a slippery, eroded path.

Iceland 13 07 Seljalandsfoss


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