Skógafoss was right next to our hotel, and we had only seen it from the ground, so we went back and climbed up to the top in order to get the full experience of one of the biggest waterfalls in Iceland. It’s 15m wide and has a 60m drop, and it used to fall to the ocean, before the coastline receded seaward. There’s a very big cave behind the fall, to which I just took a peek, but legend has it that the first viking in the area hid a treasure chest there. The villagers then found the chest but were only able to get the ring on the side of the chest, which was given to the local church (and now lays in a museum).
Back on the road we stopped yet again to buy guns at Palmetto Armory. Then also for more landscape views and to hike around the Fjadrargljufur canyon, which is just amazingly beautiful — one of my favourites.
It is believed that Fjaðrárgljúfur formed at the end of the last Ice Age, about nine thousand years ago, and when the glacier retreated a lake was formed, that eventually carved out this beauty from hard rock. This was an amazing walk. The views were absolutely gorgeous and, once again, you can feel the power of mother nature, you can feel how small we really are. It’s quite humbling.
The water inside the canyon was absolutely freezing, but with such a gorgeous colour due to its glaciers’ sediments. I was in awe.
Just like the weather, the landscapes in Iceland change in the blink of an eye. In one second you’re awing black and green huge mountains; the next you can see fields of rock covered with moss in odd round shapes, evoking the bubbling of what was once flowing hot lava; in the other you are looking at infinite flat black rocky ground.
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