June 4 – Southern Coast Drive

The winds are still around 50 mph.

Off driving today with more lovely countryside (some of it very dramatic),

more lava,

more flowers,

some cascades,

and more farms tucked up against cliffs with waterfalls.

We stopped at a roadside picnic spot to visit the Dverghamrar cliffs…more basalt columns.

The drive took us by Gigjukvisl, what was the longest bridge in Iceland.  It took a major beating in 1996 when th volcano Vatnajökull, which sat beneath Skeiðarárjökull, erupted, melting portions of the glacier.  This unleashed a Jӧkulhlaup, a mass of glacial melt or overflowing river from a glacier.  This flood was so immense that it flooded the river with a glacial tsunami that was 4 meters high and 500 meters wide and carried 5000 tons of icebergs with it along with 185 million tons of silt.     

Two girders from the bridge now form an interesting monument to the disaster.

We  saw Fjallsjӧkull Glacier...

and stopped at its glacier lagoon.  The lagoon also had lots of icebergs in it and one could take boat rides on it.  However it was extremely cold and verrrry windy.  We could only stay out very briefly and we didn’t see anyone on the lagoon.

One of the sights recommended to us was the Fjaðrárgljúfur waterfall.  So we headed off to see.  However, once we got there we realized we had seen it a few days earlier with Jessica and Tara.  So we headed back to the ring road.  On the way we stopped to take photos of the sheep sorter.  They drive all the sheep into the center pen and then the farmers sort their sheep into individual pens.  Sort of ingenious.

Our hotel tonight is pretty much in the middle of nowhere in the “town” of Hof.  It has a church, the hotel and not much else.  The food at the restaurant was very good, thank goodness as it was the only place to eat for miles around.

Interesting sign on the side of a very large vehicle.