early morning on day two we woke at six am by mistake which turned out to be good. the previous night we discussed going again to the rock formation beach, but decided to sleep in, since my phone was somehow stuck on Dublin time,, 7 am turned out to be six, so we went to the beach and followed a path up the hill to a view point overlooking a rock in the ocean with a huge hole which creates some sort of arch, several birds are seen and nice ocean views over the black sandy (lava sand) beaches. we drove back to Vik, got breakfast and drove an hour to a town with too long a name (Kirkjubæjarklaustur) , try saying that 3 times in a row, we called it kirku for short).
we got on a bus to the laki crater. with a name like laki, many jokes today are luck related. we head inland and stop by a river ravine, actually next to it and hike up the hill for some interesting river views of the step ravine and strange rock formations. i get off the bus with my usual summer clothes of short pants and a shirt, while the rest are overdressed and some lady calls me viking, strange, i have no beard at that time, no axe and i don't speak Norwegian but still her comments gets laughs from my other over dressed travels.
this hike is not long, but has interesting views of the river, we finish it and return to the bus which begins the long route on the F road. F roads in Iceland are those that need 4X4 wheel drive. the roads itself is bumpy but can be traversed even with a regular car but the problem is the many river crossings. this is a special bus, very high with larger wheels, but the ride is slow and bumpy.
it takes well over 2 hours to traverse 38 k. the views are of low green hills with many sheep and we hear in the recording over PA about how the sheep here are left alone the entire summer (all 3 months...) and collected in the fall for the long winter. we cross several rivers and eventually with a Strong urge to pee for some of us, we reach laki crater. the recording says that if we are lucky to get a rainy day, the moss will be shiny green and if we are lucky to get a sunny day, the moss will be grey. so far its a sunny day and the moss is green so we cant really trust the recording on the bus.
laki is a series of volcanoes along a fissure, each erupted in its own time, but they are on the same line, quite impressive. we begin to hike up, up and up some more on a steep trail and reach the peak of the tallest crater and see the rest, some look like classic volcanoes, some like pyramid hills and some semi collapsed craters, we also see green hills and taller mountains in the horizon and take many photos.
we descend from the hill and return to the bus after 2 hours and drive next to the craters some more. at the next stop, we go inside a big crater with a pond inside, a colourful one and keep going through what appears to be a flood river ravine inside the lava, there is no magma now of course, but we walked where it not recently did. we walk inside another volcano and see lots of tiny flowers. after an hours or so we return to the bus and begin the long bumpy ride back, we only stop for a nature break at a site of a big waterfall and reach kirku city shortly after six.
after a tasty hot dog quick dinner we begin the drive towards skaftafel national park, at the one of only two places to it there, a place at the gas station and the hotel on the other side of the tiny highway, we choose the cheaper option. i Split a pizza with shay and other people eat other things (they should write their own blogs)... the meat lovers pizza is good. we drive to the camp ground and reach after the closure of the reception, which means we cant buy the card for the showers:(.... so partially Stinky , we set up the tents and go to sleep.. thus ends day 2
photos will come your way soon...
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