Waterfalls & Broken Dreams

Day 5 in Iceland and the five of us are finally all travelling together and doing the same thing. We start the day with an incredible waterfall which you can actually walk behind. Just beside it was a waterfall in a gorge which you had to walk on rocks over water to get around to.

From there it's off to an ancient house that's built into a cave, at least I think that's what the sign said...

From here we found the highest waterfall around, which had 2 choices. Walk along the river to the base of the falls or climb a long set of stairs to see the view over the top. Needless to say Michael, David and Dory opted for the climb and were rewarded with a fantastic view over the peasants below.

Our next stop was a lighthouse on a hill with a cliffside full of Dory's favourites- puffins!

We get to a black beach with basalt columns and decide to sit in the cafe for coffee and skyr cake before proceeding down to the beach. I made a quick check on Google maps to see how far it was to our accommodation that night and to my shock it said 14 hours! I had discovered road closures and a check of the Safe Travel Iceland app confirmed multiple road closures for glacial flooding. We now had a bigger problem on our hands as we could not get to our accommodation and if the roads did not reopen we would have to drive the island back the way we had already come from. We raced down to the beach for some quick photos and enjoyment then we started the mad race trying to book last minute accommodation before others became aware of the situation.

Mum and dad booked the last hotel room in the area meanwhile we went on to Air BNB and the only place left was a glamping tent which we had earlier laughed at over the radio, jokingly asking if that was our accommodation for the night. Well, it turned out it was. Once we were all booked we drove into Vik and sat in a pub to make new plans. Mike, Dory and I were supposed to hike a glacier the next morning but we could no longer make it there unless we drove 14 hours around the island. Dory discovered there was another glacier to hike just back where we had driven from and the same company ran it but they closed it two minutes.

We quickly made the phone call. The lady at Arctic Adventures was amazing and moved our booking to the other glacier and also provided us with a refund form as this hike was not as long or vigorous. We could not believe our luck. Off we went to my parents’ hotel for dinner where we found out the room actually had another bed in it so Mike did not have to sleep on the floor. We had Arctic Char and Lamb for dinner which was sensational. The food in Iceland is so fresh and delicious. After charging all my devices, Dory and I headed to our tent for the night.

Upon entering the tent, I was amazed to see powerpoints and a heater! I lost the bet that there would be no power to the tent but I was happy with that. The couple in the tent next to us were sitting out the front having some drinks. We ended up joining them for a few hours and had a great night, sleeping soundly in the most glamorous of glamping tents.