Vatnajökull National Park.

Straight from the Jökulsárlón we continue our ride to Vatnajökull National Park, where our friend Pieter wanted to do a glacial hike with small group of other tourists. As Ralph did this in New Zeland some years ago and Peter and I couldn't afford paying 70 euros for the trip, we decided to wander around while Pieter was climbing on glacier. Vatnajökull is the largest glacier in Europe and the third largest glacier by size after ice caps of Antarctic and Greenland. With area of 8300 km², it covers 8% of Iceland (or, for example, whole Puerto Rico). It is sooo big, that each of its glaciar tongue is treated as separate glacier with its own name. We had chance to see one of them - Skaftafellsjökull.

Vatnajökull, or better said - a small piece of it on our way to the national park.



Vatnajökull National Park is one of three national parks in Iceland. When established in 2008, the park covered an area of 12.000 km², but with recent additions of Lakagígar, Langisjór and Krepputunga it now covers 14.200 km² (14% of country), making it Europe's second largest national park after Yugyd Va in Russia. Just imagine - when we visited Dettifoss (The North.), we were actually in Vatnajökull National Park too!

The scenery in the park was extremely varied. From waterfalls, hills and mountains to totally flat lowlands. Diversity is probably the best word to describe Iceland. 

Which waterfall should we see first?

The view from one of countless hills. Sometimes I really felt like I was on other, alien planet.

Tiny plants were a nice addition to really severe conditions around. 

Unfortunately, last winter stayed in whole Europe so long, that we couldn't experience greenness of real spring in Iceland. The landscape was more autumn-like and I was trying to imagine how beautiful these hills could be with flower's meadow at their feet.

Blue, warm water just in front of glacier. Another wonderful surprise that day.

Skaftafellsjökull glacier. I have never seen something like that before. I have always been a huge fan of Geography at school, an atlas was my favourite book during my childhood, an artificial globe was my beloved toy. Then, at 26 y.o. I managed to stand in front of everything I was passionate about in my primary school. Ok, maybe glacial periods weren't my favourite topics of lessons, but seeing this with my own eyes left a huge impression on me. Nature is so powerful and beautiful. 

I don't know why, but wind there was so icredibly strong, like a hurricane. It blowed like crazy from the glacier that I leant against it and didn't fall back as you can see in the photo above. Since then, all gales and windstorms of England are just a little breezes for me ;)

When Pieter returned from glacier hike, it was already too late to sightsee anything else that day so we packed ourselves in car and drove to our next hostel. If you want to find yourself in the middle of nowhere, follow this address: Skaftarhreppur, Kirkjubaejarklaustur 880, Iceland. This is the Hvoll Hostel location and except us, the only guest there was one female tourist. I went outside and admired beautiful sky above my head. The most miraculous clouds - only in Iceland. I could watch Icelandic sunsets every day.