July 21, Skaftafell, N64°2' W16°11'
Continuing east along the Golden Circle route, we visited the Skaftafell preserved area inside Vatnajokull National Park. Our first stop was to Laufskálavarða, a lava ridge where a tradition started to form stacks of lava rocks for good luck. A small building at the site contained pay toilets, with contactless payment readers in the "middle of nowhere", as I saw frequently in Iceland. An attendant was busy cleaning them while we were there, closing the whole building and frustrating those who wanted to use the toilets.
Along the way we stopped at the Skeiðará Bridge Monument, a tribute to what was left of a bridge once the longest in Iceland. Quoting Atlas Obscura, "In 1996, the volcano Vatnajökull, which sat beneath Skeiðarárjökull, erupted, melting portions of glacier and creating massive floods. While the girder bridge was built to withstand a hefty amount of flood waters, there was no preparing for the house-sized icebergs that the floods washed down the plain. A number of these glacial shards crashed into the bridge, wiping it out and creating a gap in the main ring road around Iceland." This is all that remains.
Next was a brief stop at Eystri-Fellsfjara, also known as "Ice Diamond Beach". This is a beach of black lava sand onto which pieces of iceberg wash up, leaving sparking pieces.
Finally we reached the Jökulsárlón glacial lagoon, the deepest lake in Iceland, but also the shortest river, running from the outlet of two glaciers to the ocean. We boarded a "duck boat" and took a 45-minute cruise around the lagoon, passing by various icebergs. At one point our guide, Elizabeth, handed around a clear chunk of ice that she said would have been hundreds or even thousands of years old, revealed when a glacier calved and ice not previously exposed became visible.
We then drove back to our hotel in Vik. Leslie and I walked down to the beach (lava sand, of course) after dinner. In this next picture, the church is on a hill some distance away, but the lower elevation of the beach and a berm in the middle hides all other vestiges of civilization.
