It was another hopeful northern light night with no sightings. But having buffet breakfast - a smyrlabjorg smorgasbord, if you will - set the morning off right. We gave Icelandic horses some scratches on the neck, and drove back to the glacier lagoon. Stunning! Glacier chunks like crystals floating on glassy water. A few times we hear a loud crash as a chunk broke off into the water. Some were carried downstream and off to sea. We walked along the black beach where tons of glacier pieces were washed ashore.
In the early afternoon we met up with a tour and hiked across a glacier to an ice cave formed earlier this year from water runoff that created a river between two glaciers that are pushing together. This cave is slowly closing in on itself and will be gone in a month or two. Crazy! We got to gear up for our adventure with crampons and ice axe which was a bonus.
During our long drive toward our new airbnb cabin we stopped in Vik at Reynisfjara Black Sand Beach. The sun was setting and the basalt columns and rocks were breathtaking.
We also stopped to see a waterfall we missed yesterday, easy to miss since it's hiding behind a rock.
By the time we made it to where our cottage is it was completely dark and hard to see signs, we drove back and forth across gravel roads past farms trying to follow the directions for more than an hour with no luck. Not all who wander are lost...but we sure were. It took turning on our cellular data and searching Google satellite map view to find the place, and it was nearly midnight! Phew! Amazing but exhausting day. We all agreed a slower pace is needed for tomorrow.