Vík

Óðinn on a great rock at the Vík í Mýrdal campgrounds

We camped at Vík í Mýrdal last week, my son and I. I always have a tent and blankets and basic supplies in the trunk of my car so we can skip out of town with a moment's notice if the weather looks good, and last week, though it rained and rained in Reykjavik, the sun shown down on the south coast.


I had intended to put down stakes in Skógafoss but an evening's chilly wind had come up and the camping ground there is pretty unprotected. Plus it smelled like someone had just fertilized the whole region. So we jumped back into the car and zipped over to Vík, where we were lucky enough to find this excellent spot right next to a pyramid-shaped rock, which conveniently had a large metal loop driven into it that I used to anchor our tent (if you look closely you can see the line between them.)  Yes, we escaped the smell, but here it was even windier, and the chill had turned to nighttime cold. It hardly bothered us, though, because we were out in nature, on an adventure, just the two of us!

Near midnight Óðinn climbed our rock and I snapped this shot. Soon we snuggled into our little blue home and got cozy, ready for rest. With nesting gulls on the little cliff above us, a gurgling nearby child-sized waterfall, and the crunched-plastic sound the wind made with our tent, it was hard, though, to finally get to sleep. It sounded like elves or spooks were trying to get into our tent the way the wind was whipping it around, and I realized that I was a bit scared! When I thought back to all the nights I've spent in tents out in the total wilds of the Sierra Nevada, where it's pitch-black outside and bears roam (and you'd better be damned sure you don't even have a bite of food in your tent or they'll come in and get it!) I laughed at my fear. The worst thing that could happen to us here was to maybe have a midge trapped inside our tent with us, or to have to listen to some late-night drunken singing from some other campers. I smiled at that, the sense of safety I feel here in Iceland, and soon fell fast asleep : )

Sky

Kid with towel at Nauthólsvík beach in Reyjavík

I just love this photo! I snapped it today out at Nauthólsvík, the white-sand beach here in Reykjavík  (btw, read the post in that last link for a good journey down memory lane - I wrote it in 2007 about how amazing Iceland's economic growth was, and how much we deserved it! Haha!) which sits just below Perlan and the Öskjuhlíð forest (here's a good article from the Grapevine about this area.).  A group of pre-schoolers were on a field trip to the beach, and this little dude was spreading his towel out at the top of the hillock above where we sat.


It ended up getting a bit chilly when the high, grey clouds from the east floated in front of the sun, but until then the 14°C temp kept me, at least, pretty happy. As always, I recommend visiting this outdoor marvel, especially if traveling here with kids (hint: there's a constructed hot pool on site for parents to relax and warm in ; )

June Sun

Skólavörðurstígur

11:30pm last Thursday night, looking down Skólavörðurstígur. Lovely!

Jökulsárlón

Getting ready for a carboat trip at Jökulsárlón

I think this pic is so charming and silly somehow. The carboat was filled up with people and just waiting there on dry land. It reminds me of a photo I took years ago at Hljómskálagarður, the park by the town lake (interesting historical info at that link, btw.) All prepped up in their safety vests, the mighty seafarers of the glacial lagoon get set for their adventure...


Like I mentioned on the Facebook page, the lagoon was very filled up with small bergs when we went there the weekend before last. The woman in the shop said that they usually have a safety boat that cruises out into the lagoon with these bigger ones to rescue any unlucky visitors who go overboard, but that there just wasn't room for two boats at once, as was. I didn't ask, and couldn't find anything in a cursory search, so I don't know if the size and quantity of the bergs are because it's early in the warmer season, or due to retreating glaciation. I'll try to dig up more on that, but in the meantime, you can read the Wikipedia entry (which someone should edit...) for this natural wonder The lagoon is getting bigger with glacial retreat, and deeper as well.

Regardless, it's still pretty easy to get a good photo, even with a goofy pink compact camera like mine, and without the towering chunks of glacier that sometimes command over the lagoon. And if you're lucky you'll find a large chunk of millennia-old ice floating by the shore that you and your son can pretend is an inter-dimensional crystal from a watery planet far far away...