After a couple of days in The Blue Lagoon in Iceland, we moved bases to Reykjavik (we had a car so moving around was quite easy) and so on this particular day, we set off to see as many Icelandic sights as possible!
The day was filled with amazing waterfalls, scary yet impressive looking volcanos, powerful geysers and so much more but one thing that I was looking forward to was hopping aboard a snowmobile and taking a ride on a glacier.
After spending time driving from site to site, we finally arrived at the snowmobile place, tired yet excited, just to find out that they’d closed.
There was someone at the place but the people who could take you up weren’t available and so it looked like we would have to give seeing a glacier a miss.
I was disappointed but figured it was at least worth trying out a few other places.
Long story short, the story was the same and we were due to leave Iceland the next day on a rather early flight so coming back bright and early was not an option.
Refusing to give up, I had a look on Google Maps which suggested that there was a glacier somewhere nearby. It was off the main roads and if there’s one piece of advice I would give anyone going off-roading in Iceland, it would be to actually get a vehicle that is built for off-roading!
What ensued in our tiny little car was a lot of scared and slow driving over volcanic rocks till we arrived at the foot of a hill and figured we would carry on the search on foot.
After trekking for a while longer, we finally arrived at the base of a huge mountain and what looked like ice in the distance.
I am all up for a challenge but the thought of having to climb all the way to the top of that mountain, in inappropriate climbing shoes and clothes was just too much to handle and I resigned myself to seeing the glacier from afar… (if you look closely at the picture above you can see a group of people walking on the glacier – this will provide some perspective on how far it seemed).
This was until Lloyd pointed out to me that I was already standing on the glacier…
The glacier was superficially covered in sand that I had no idea it was all ice underneath it!
I thought it was more like when you had a bit of snow on the ground that was melting away… (Basically, I thought the mountain just had light snow on it – it sure looks that way doesn’t it?)
Pleased with myself, I went off to explore some more of the glacier! A bit further down, I got a small sense of the size of that glacier (and did a rather sill thing which I wouldn’t recommend doing).
The silly thing was standing underneath it just to touch it. I soon realised (look at the left) that these shelves of ice were just cracking off the main glacier.
Realising this, I swiftly moved away….
Lloyd decided it would be a great idea to try out ice from the glacier! Seeing how it takes years and years for glacier’s to melt, I figured it would be the cherry on the cake to actually taste the glacier!
Dear goodness I’m so graceless at licking ice!What is that look on my face? (*swiftly moving on*)
N.B.: The ice tasted of nothing (which is good), it wasn’t salty or “earthy” or anything of the sort!
We spent the rest of the evening faffing around the glacier (pretending to get really cool photos but all the while just doing silly things like jumping across the mini river formed by the melting glacier)…
Which got my shoes very dirty and covered in mud. When the mud dried it became volcanic sand (and that stuff gets everywhere – I swear there is still a lot left in those shoes!)
Eventually, we made out way back to the car, bidding the glacier farewell!
After some more painful driving on dirt track roads to get back to the main road, we drove past the glacier again and I was quite impressed and pleased with the fact that our resolve to find the glacier had paid off and that just 20 minutes ago, we were on that glacier that looked so far away in the distance!
Read more: Best things to do in Iceland
Check Out The Very Best Of Great Britain!
