The Black Sand Beach
By now the snow stopped completely and the only nuisance was the windy cold. The rest of the trip we would be blessed with good weather. Since the weather changes so much, you have to keep track of the road conditions especially when you drive along the less populous eastern and northern sides of the island.
The first stop for today? A black sand beach!
This one's a bit rocky, and you can see a small arch out in the distance. Those white splotches are snow patches that have not melted.
The sand here was not as dark as I was expecting. The other thing was that there were a ton of warnings about deadly sneaker waves which claim a few deaths per year. But with this cold I don't know who is crazy enough to get that close to the water anyhow.
There were some pretty cool rock formations. Would have possibly been a better setting for another daydream. You can't see from my photos, but there were a lot of tourists here. Too many. It was not long before we were on the move again to the next spot.
On the move we frequently had moments of ooohs and ahhhhs as we snaked around the bends of the roads. The one above I took while we were on the move, with the sun breaking through the clouds. It was taken not too far from the beach we just left.
The Forbidden Ice Canyon
At the next stop, we were greeted by an unfriendly warning sign that said it was closed. However, we saw that another car had zipped on by and decided to tag behind.
Shortly after, we were flagged down by a car on the way out. It was the park ranger, telling us that it was closed, but that if we wanted, we could hike to the canyon. But we were not to go down to the river, which was being damaged by tourists.
We decided to check the place out. There were very few people on this trail, and it felt very nice, like being alone in the vast ice wilderness.
Along the trail there was a small flowing river with icicles, and I thought that looked interesting.
It took about 20 minutes for us slow walkers but we got to the canyon. All the while we were muttering that this had better be worth weathering the cold for.
It wasn't.
But it would have been a nice spot for a picnic (we are very clean thoughtful tourists, really!).
We took a few photos and went on our merry way.
The isolation and the monotony of the walk back gave us a bit of time to reflect about life. About marriage. About work. About Opal. Just to match the mood of the wind, the cold, and the crunch of the snow.
The expansive snow covered landscape.
The trail as others caught up.
On the road and back to sleep
After the little hike we hit the road again, towards the place we were going to stay that night.
The drive was not very eventful, but there were times I could point my phone and take some very nice pictures, like this next one showing the reflection on the water.
Then, we had an unplanned stop when we spotted a set of cascading mini waterfalls. The others went close to the waterfalls but I decided to stay closer to the car and take a picture from farther back.
That was the last stop until we finally arrived at the hostel. We cooked seafood spaghetti, a nice hot chicken soup, and drank Icelandic Coke.
After that, we rested for the night as the following morning we had an appointment for a glacier hike adventure. We did not know it yet, but it would be much, much more tiring than we had imagined, but a wonderful experience. Stay tuned!
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