Sep 11, 2015

Day 8 & 9 The Ring Road: Vik - Kirkjubæjarklaustur - Skaftafell

Day 8 | 15th July
Vik - Kirkjubæjarklaustur - Skaftafell

So right after our previous stop at Seljalandsfoss waterfall, we got back to the road for another 60km drive to our next stop. hahaha, a slight tip for you guys intending to go on roadtrips. To prevent exhaustion, do make sure you have more than 1 driver to switch places. I was the only driver. It's time for someone to get a license (ahemmm,yes you) As I am not one whom is used to driving, so when I do for long periods, I get bored and start being in a daze. Loud music helped tremendously.  



1. Vikurfjara (Black Sand Beach), Vik i Myrdal

The drive to Vik seemed extra long, but once we made it, it felt soo good. If my memory serves me right, it was along this route there was this superr duperr and I mean really long bridge we had to drive through with about a 2 storeys drop. It felt sooo exhilarating to be driving along that single lane bridge! So so cool! I might be wrong about the exact location but it's definitely along route 1. I did some slight research and the bridge is called Skeiðrá. 

And we made it!!
YAYYY!
WELCOME TO THE BLACK BEACH. One of the most beautiful beaches on earth. I would say it's more of amazing. So dope. 
I actually think the sand looks more grey than black at first glance. But when you hold some sand in between your palms, yup they're definitely black.
of course I had to do a yoga pose. haaaaa #stopdropyoga
Lupines which are commonly seen all over Iceland. So lovely.
and yes, I'm guilty of bringing home a bottle of sand from the beach. (and some stones) I mean who wouldn't??
*rawr*
These two pictures looks really kinfolk and sigur ros -ish inspired don't ya think? girll can go make album and magazine liao.
Pardon the bad skin. I was breaking out so bad. & like I said earlier, I had no time to wear any makeup but I think it's great that I was barefaced.
Caught the horsies in the background!
ASIAN AUNTY WITH SELFIE STICK IZ HEREEE
Would've loved to stay and explore the place a little longer. I think there's hidden caves nearby you could explore. But I believe it was about 10pm or 11pm, so we definitely had to leave for our campsite for the night.
Time to drive, again.

2. Kirkjubæjarklaustur

So basically this was our stop to sleep and refuel. I apparently did not take pictures of the campsite. I will take note of this bad habit in the future. But yeah, we stopped by an official campsite called Camping Site and Cottages Kirkjubær II. The entrance fee is 1200 ISK which is about SGD12.22 which is pretty pricey. The fees include usage of toilets and a small kitchen with a kettle. Shower is chargeable for 300 ISK for 5 minutes. Yes, there's a time limit. Obviously nobody would use the shower though the toilet seemed pretty nice and clean.  

The campsite also had cottages with bunk beds which I would kinda recommend. We didn't take the rooms, we slept in our car. Big mistake. It got soooo cold in a few hours that we were shivering quite literally. Well actually I was doing alright with my layers until someone took my jacket. haaa but I think it's really hilarious to look back at our sufferings. After that I was extremely cold, I was so desperate for warmth, I covered myself with a bag that seemed like a windbreaker sorta material. It's so funny, cause it was quite a sad sight lol. hahaha.

Took a screenshot from a video I took before we slept. The funny thing we agreed on was that our makeshift bed in the car felt more comfortable than our airbnb beds lol. But our car was not warm enough. We didn't turn the engines on to save on our gas. Next time, we'll take the bunk beds.


Day 9 | 16th July
Kirkjubæjarklaustur - Skaftafell

Woke up bright and early the next day feeling so beautiful. not.
Our bodies hurt from the car seat and we were still really cold. We didn't bring a cup so...I kinda took the liberty to 'borrow' somebody's green cup as you'll see below. Desperate times calls for desperate measures. It was going to be a long day & I wasn't going to go without coffee.

Though we were pretty thankful for the kettle provided and the heaters in the kitchen. oh in case you're wondering, we had quite the ghetto breakfast, lunch and dinner. Not just for our roadtrip but for about 90% of our stay there, we mostly had the same thing everyday which was bread and some spread.
Afterwards, we quickly cleaned up and got back on the road again.

1. Vatnajökull Glacier, Skaftafell 

So this was a really exciting to start to our day. Back in Reykjavik, we made a booking for a Glacier walk on one of the largest glaciers in Europe. Though technically we only covered the outer parts of Vatnajökull only lol. So, funny story. We had issues with refuelling our car back in Kirk with our Debit cards. And the store wasn't opened, so we had to wait for the store to open so that we could manually purchase our fuel. So that was one issue we had. With that, we had lesser time to drive to our next stop which was the glacier.

Our glacier slot was at 9.30am but with everything, we arrived about 10-15 minutes later and we even called the tour place to wait for us. In the end they couldn't cause we were too late. But the lady was kind enough to let us in on the next slot which was in an hour's time. I drove as fast as I could (I might've gone 100km/h, shhhh) and as safely as I could but oh well. I mean at least we were still able to go on the next slot. So we sat around the cafe there and finally caught up to the social world. Crazy how they have wifi near mountains huh.

oh & we went with Glacier Guides on the Glacier Wonders tour. It's the easiest option for 8990 ISK which is pretty cheap among the other tours.

 It's finally time! We got our feet fitted for the special glacier shoes and took the bus that brought us to the glacier area. 
 Doesn't this look amazing?? Like straight out of a brochure cover!
Our gears! Spiked shoes and the hook things. I felt like a miner from the seven dwarfs.
aunty hard at work. It was a relatively easy hike minus the annoying stones. 
We were always the last cause we're too busy goofing off to pictures lol
Finally we're on glacier! & meet our guide! I can't remember his name though.
There's lots of these and these are stones that is really soft on the inside with the moss on the outer layer. If you squeeze it, water will come out. It looks soo cute huh? Of course me being me, I had to break it apart and crush it. The only time I can break a stone. Sorry, I couldn't help myself.
and they had plenty of these water streams
so so amazing isn't it?
And yay we made it to the glacier walk despite all the difficulties faced!
All in all, for the price I would recommend this tour. Eventhough we didn't exactly glacier walked on the Vatnajokull, this was enough for us (obviously our stamina is pretty weak).

& that was just the start of our day with our final few stops on the next post.

Oh, a slight reality news, it's Singapore's election day and I got to vote for the first time. How exciting!

Have a great weekend guys!


Glacier Guides
http://www.glacierguides.is
Tour we took: Glacier Wonders - Glacier Walk from Skaftafell
Price: 8990 Kr (Approx SGD 91.56)
Duration: 3 hours with 4 time slots daily

Petrol/Gas from N1
https://www.n1.is/en
We got: A prepaid card worth 5000 Kr for gas ( We used diesel)
The card can be used to purchase items from store
Petrol prices are about the same for most brands though





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