Iceland Part II: Puffins, Ice, and Black Sand
- Anita Gray
- 3 days ago
- 3 min read
Updated: 10 hours ago
When we woke up in van I peeked, timidly, behind the curtains of the rear window fully expecting to see wet gloominess and was completely overjoyed to see blue skies and brilliant sunshine. With my first van-made pourover coffee in hand, I could scarcely believe our luck when I saw that the weather forecast had entirely shifted to dry and sunny for the next five days. It almost made up for the fiasco of getting here!
That morning we had booked a tour to explore some Ice Caves on the Volcano Katla. It was with Katlatrack, and our guide's name was Marcelo (who happened to hail from Portugal). Marcelo explained that we had timed the visit very well as it had been nothing but soggy and cold for the past two weeks. Just the ride to the glacier was a lot of fun as we traveled in a specialized all terrain van with tires that were ginormous and could have copious amounts of air vented out to allow it to traverse the rivers/gravel/ice as we approached the start of our hike. The scenery as we drove out of Vik was incredible - and Marcelo told us that the mountains surrounding Katla were used in a variety of scenes from Rogue One, and as a Star Wars super fan, that trivia had me grinning from ear to ear.
Bathed in warm sun, we donned microspikes and made our way to the network of ice caves that we had the privilege to explore, knowing that the current formations would likely collapse/melt and re-form in the coming weeks. The closest thing to what we saw that I've experienced in my travels has to be The Blue Glacier on the approach to the climb of Mt Olympus in Olympic National Park in Washington. I had climbed it in 2018 and the maze of waterfalls carving their way through the ice reminded me of that stunning landscape that is also fast disappearing with climate change. We took so many photos and just couldn't get over how beautiful it was here. Highly recommend this experience to anyone visiting the Vik area.
We mentioned to Marcelo that we were planning on visiting Dyrhólaey viewpoint after the tour, and he suggested that we hike down to the black sand beach below as we had a good chance of spotting Puffins nesting there in the cliffs overlooking the ocean. After putting together a quick salad lunch, we headed out with eyes peeled to see Puffins. The hike ended up looking a lot longer than we had anticipated and we soon realized that the area Marcelo had told us about actually had its own second "parking lot". Matt offered to let me continue on foot while he retrieved the van and met me down there. On arrival at the cliffs overlooking the beach, I spotted a small crowd of people, some with giant telephoto lens cameras. I squeezed my way into the group and immediately saw a puffin not more than 8 feet away from me, emerging from a burrow to take flight for an evening snack of fish. I was so excited, I took a few photos but then immediately started to panic that Matt might miss seeing this and ran off to the parking area to corral him over. He was just pulling up as I excitedly waved like a ten year old and dragged him back to the cliff. Panicked that my new best friend wasn't going to show up, we watched with baited breath until he re-emerged from his burrow for Matt to see. I also managed to grab this cute little video of him flying back with supper in his beak.
Our next stop took us to Fjaorargljufur, a gorgeous short but stunning canyon made by water which provided a lovely evening hike before we drove another few hours East to get closer to Jökulsárlón where we would be kayaking with icebergs the next morning. We pulled over at one point when we spotted a beautiful herd of Icelandic Ponies and we couldn't resist the chance to get out and feed them some carrots. The one who took a liking to Matt we named "Bowie" because of his gorgeously epic mane!
Our campsite this evening was at Tjaldsvæðið í Svínafelli - another wonderful example of Icelandic words that are simply impossible to pronounce correctly. We arrived around midnight and were asleep by 1am.
Continue reading: Iceland Part III: Diamond Beaches and more waterfalls →
Great writing! Loved the story about the puffins. Glad you got to see them. This sounds like a paradise for you and Matt, and so glad you got to go. Thanks for sharing your adventure with us in your blog. I hope you'll write many more blog posts. It's a pleasure to read.