Iceland in winter - Part 5

This is the 5th part of our winter Iceland adventure, if you haven't read the first one you should start here: https://www.gyorgypalko.com/post/izland-telen-1-resz

Make sure you watch our two shortfilms about Iceland as an introduction: https://youtu.be/d7nqYv_YMrU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuqukLlcIY4

Johanna and I dug a small cave in the snow pile, after which the warm dinner was particularly good. Eszter made a pasta with pesto, and Johanna took it upon herself to taste it first, and then she ate it. One of the pivotal points of traveling with children is "what should the child eat"... This is also the case with us, but it is interesting that our child is somehow more open about this topic at this time. Pizza, for example, is also associated with a holiday, maybe I'll write about it one day.

Not much interesting happened to us in the evening, except that we started planning our next day, which the weather forecast promised would be quite adventurous. In Iceland, it is not customary to issue a yellow alert until there is a compelling reason for it, two days later there was such a strong wind that it literally overturned Johi 2 times, and no alert was issued for that day. On our 5th day, however, a yellow alert was in effect for our route, so I asked a photographer friend of mine living in Iceland (thanks Claudio!) what he suggested, how to plan our day. Based on the forecast, he suggested that we arrive at Diamond Beach after noon, which we agreed to, so the girls could sleep for a long time in the morning, which suited them as well. I got up around 7, as usual, and woke up to interesting sounds. (Be careful with the volume in the following videos! :) )

This was taken lying in bed right after waking up. Yes, I'm inside the house, the phone amplifies it a bit, but the sound of the wind can be heard inside!

Our accommodation was a kind of container house, which was made in Latvia, then brought to Iceland by ship and placed in its final location by crane. I guess it was attached to the ground with some kind of piles, and if the wind blows from the right direction, it can blow under a little, which makes the whole building resonate. It's a very strange, interesting feeling, I could even call it scary.

Thanks to the stormy wind, the rain fell almost horizontally. According to the original plans, we would have been on our way by then, because we wanted to be at Diamond Beach by sunrise. Since it was cloudy and rainy, it wouldn't have made much sense to go there so early. This decision turned out to be a good one.

The video is not sped up!

At the end of this video, you can clearly see the direction of the rain, almost horizontal...

We spent two nights at the Arctic Exclusive Ranch. I booked this accommodation on their website, and the owner, Ingi, was already very nice during our correspondence, and personally this only got stronger, I had a very good conversation with him. Some pictures of the accommodation, unfortunately I couldn't fly the drone either day because the wind was always blowing and we arrived late or left early, so I don't have any pictures of the area.

Our 5th day - Jökulsárlón and Diamond Beach

So we didn't start early, it was already dawn when we got into the car. It was difficult to get out of the house, we had to hold on to the door tightly so that the wind wouldn't pull it out of our hands, because it was the 10 minutes when it started raining. This morning we experienced how quickly the weather changes. First it rains, then 10-15 minutes later it stops, and then the same amount of time passes and it starts to rain again. It's very unusual, but it helps you to accept the current bad weather a little, because you know that you don't have to endure it for long. It rained so much that by the time we got to the car, our clothes (outside) were drenched.

Our first stop was a Tesla supercharger in Kirkjubæjarklaustur. We started from our accomodation with a 40% battery, the charger was about 40km away, so I wasn't worried at all if we could get there. However, the navigation wanted to take me on the route it thought was good, not on the shorter one I wanted to go, and it insisted on this for almost half an hour, that is, it constantly wanted to turn back, and there was a moment when it suggested such a long detour that we could only do with 8% battery arrive at the charger. In the morning, of course, I checked the road conditions, there was no closure written anywhere, so I couldn't make sense of it. I confidently ignored the navigation at each turning back opportunity, but over time my confidence also waned, because we had less and less charge if we had to turn somewhere. We finally arrived at the charger without any obstacles. So there are situations where the navigation is not perfect, but I don't recommend anyone to test this.

It can be seen that Google would turn it back even almost halfway...

While the car was charging, I took a walk on the mirror ice because I saw an interesting church nearby.

Our next stop is Lómagnúpur, a huge mountain next to the road. The weather was not ideal, so I quickly turned the drone over to the glacier streams here. This area can also be seen as the opening image of our videos. (Some of the pictures were not taken in the morning, but during our evening stop.)

Get "full" insurance on the car if you don't want to worry! The pebble that caused this was so big that I had never hit a windshield anywhere before...

This part of the trip was perhaps the least exciting. In summer, when it is the green on the left side is definitely prettier. It was interesting to see how different the landscape looks on both sides of the road.

Our destination for this day was Jökulsárlón and Diamond Beach. Even from the parking lot, the blue of the glacier pieces were impressive, eye-catching sight. We have never seen such a blue color in nature in our life.

It would be much more difficult to describe what this area is like in words, so I won't even try. The weather was very kind to us. The wind continued to blow very strongly, but sometimes the sun came out. Given the weather in the morning, we did not expect this at all.

Of course, Kiki also accompanied us here.

The huge pieces of ice that float in the water broke off from the Breiðamerkurjökull glacier, and the lake was created by the retreat of the glacier. You can walk quite close to the water, and then from a small hill you can see far away, even up to the glacier. Here, global warming and the melting of glacier ice are tangible for people. Especially when we reach the Diamond Beach, which is a few minutes' walk away, which got its name "Diamond Beach" from the pieces of ice washed ashore by the surging ocean. Most of the washed-out pieces of ice are really as crystal clear as if they were huge diamonds.

There is also an electric charging station in this parking lot. So while we were looking, our car was charged to 100% and we were able to start. If you don't want to pay for parking, there is a parking lot 1-2 km earlier, from which the glacier lake can be viewed from another side.

Not a crowded parking lot in winter...

Fjallsárlón

Since the weather was still very good, only the wind was blowing, we decided to make another glacier stop. Fjallsárlón can also be seen from road 1, and you can easily get to the parking lot. From here, walking up a small ridge offers a breathtaking panorama, the glacier is much closer here than at Jökulsárlón. Despite the strong wind, I wanted to fly the drone, let the pictures come.

First video that was not edited by János Marozsán, but by me. Please see that the quality is not that good, but I felt that the visual itself was enough, and a perfect video was not necessary.

From here, we wanted to take the Svartifoss half way, but I felt that it wouldn't fit in before dark, so we stopped by Lómagnupur again, where I flew the drone again for a bit, and this was followed by a 20-minute charge on the same Tesla supercharger as in the morning and an uneventful journey to our accommodation. To be continued...