Iceland Day 4

Wednesday (and Shelley's birthday)

Oof, early wake up to be on the road by 4:30 am. We have our Glacier hike and Ice cave tour today and it's about 5 hours away. Luckily we arrived plenty ahead of time in Skaftafell and Vatnajokull National Park. Vatnajokull is the big white glacier on the map. We meet up at the southern tip of it for our hike.

Part of the ice is black from the lava rocks

Inside the ice cave

A view of the glacier through some ice

We did it, and it's sunny!

After our hike we drove to Diamond Beach about an hour further east on the coast. Glaciers break off inside of Glacier lagoon then drift to the ocean, which then get pushed onto the beach by the ocean current. It's beautiful.

Here is Glacier Lagoon, and one of the only wildlife creatures we saw this trip.

We ate lunch at the food truck here. McKinley and I got a lobster roll which was actually Langoustine which is prawns. Kent got an Icelandic hot dog. Shelley got lobster soup again.

Back west on the coast for 2 1/2 hours to reach Reynisfara Beach with just enough sunlight left. It's cliff walls are basalt that has formed columns. It's a very picturesque beach.

On our way back from the beach we finally saw some Icelandic horses up close and had to get a picture. They were very friendly.

There are cute churches throughout Iceland. We didn't stop at any of them though so I snapped a quick pic while we were speeding by in the car.

The Northern Lights tour got canceled tonight again due to weather. Surprise, surprise. So we head off to bed. While laying in bed, Shelley notices the sky is all clear. We press our faces against the hallway hotel window that faces north. We see something smudgey in the sky but can't really tell if it is anything. We decided to get dressed in our warm stuff and just go outside on the north and check it out, as we have nothing to lose really. Looking across the streets of Reykjavik toward a bright gas station it does look like it may be something in the sky. Shelley and McKinley's iphones have night mode and when you take a picture you can see that it actually is the Northern Lights. We found them!!

After a couple minutes there someone passes by and tells us it's better on the other side of the gas station, and it was. It was a birthday miracle for Shelley. We were so lucky to see the Northern Lights on this trip especially with all the crazy weather and despite being in a light polluted area. The best birthday ever!!