Photos

Day 3 - Vik

Because of dryness in Iceland for a few months and because of windy weather, the coast around Vik was submitted to sandstorms, so not a very good idea to take pictures on the coast ... Instead our icelandic guide Thor recommended us to follow the route number 214, also called Kerlingardalsvegur, that drives you bottom of Mýrdalsjökull glacier. We already walked along this route in the morning and enjoyed the scenery, so we followed Thor recommendation and went for a photo drive along route number 214 in the late afternoon. We didn't regret it because we saw incredible landscapes such as this one !

What you see on the picture is an incredible scenery formed by erosion (wind and water), with small orange and green hills and many salient rocks. The road dominates Mýrdalssandur sandur (the plain you can see in the BG). A sandur is a plain bottom of glaciers formed by alluviums carried by glaciers melting waters. This forms huge black sand plains crossed by many small rivers. This is a quite common landscape in Iceland, and sandur is an icelandic word indeed. What is particular with Mýrdalssandur is the kind of island in the middle of black sands that you can see in the BG and that is called Hjorleifshöfdi. Note on the left the sandstorms coming up from the sandur. No need to say conditions were hard to take this picture, a strong wind and a lot of sand in the air flowing in your eyes ... and in your camera !