The top of the world tour: Iceland, Day 6. Waterfalls everywhere!

Morgan is obsessed by waterfalls. The name of this Iceland tour on the YPT website is ‘Don’t Go Chasing Waterfalls.’ For a tour telling us not to chase them, we certainly ignored that directive! At the end of the day, as we were walking towards the black sand beach, he proudly told us that we’d visited 9 waterfalls that day.

I believe him. I mean, we’d all lost count long ago, but why would he lie?

I’ll preface this by saying that unlike my usual travel blogs where I have the names of everything down pat, this isn’t going to happen this time. The Icelandic spelling is really hard, plus we saw a LOT of water being affected by gravity today. These waterfalls are nameless. Some are way famous, while others are secret little ones that only the locals know about.
Anyway, here’s what we saw today.

1.

The first one of the day. The water was a little murky with sediment, but it was strong and powerful.

2.

This one had it all. Swans, the glacier in the background where all the water came from, and a beautiful vista as the river rolls away. Big thumbs up for this one.

3.

This one was a crowd favourite. The water has etched its way through the rock and it looks spectacular as it hides away within the mountain, then appears. The grotto it’s in is wonderful, and everyone was sure that this would be the one.
However, Morgan had a few tricks up his sleeve…

4. This one is one of the way famous ones. There was a massive car park, parking attendants and food shops there.
We put

Amazingly beautiful, and you can walk behind it.

See?

As we were walking around to the next waterfall, I saw these horses being taken out. Icelandic horses are everywhere. I think I’ve seen more horses than sheep.

5.

This one was stunning. You get a tantalising glimpse from outside, then have to hop through the stream, rock by rock, to get to see it in its full glory.

I was lucky on the way back through the stream. There was a gridlock of people, some going in, others going out. I hesitated, balancing on a rock, and someone’s hand shot out to mine just as I was about to overcorrect and step into the water. Then, other hands helped me all the way along the line.

”Thanks everyone!” I called out as I reached dry land.

Next was a drive towards lunch. Morgan was taking us to the best fish and chips in Iceland. I was happy, because I have now gotten rid of most of my Icelandic money.

Don’t bring cash when you come here. Iceland is pretty much completely cashless.

6.

How impressive is this?

Though look at those steps running up the hill beside the waterfall. Those were nearly the end of me. I knew that there’d be a lot of physical activity on this trip. Everyone else on this tour is decades younger and much fitter than me. But oof. Those steps were HARD, especially after a few days of racing around and climbing things.

”How are you going?” asked Baptiste at one stage.
“Ok, but I’m sure my Apple Watch thinks it’s been stolen!”

This waterfall attracted some interesting tourists…

Once at the top, we walked along a path and saw another couple of waterfalls.

7 and 8.

9.

This one was very special. We walked through an amazingly beautiful canyon, with the waterfall at the end.

Again, we could walk behind this one. It was fantastic.

My legs were hurting, so I walked back before the others, enjoying the quiet time on my own. All I could hear was the babbling of the little stream beside the path.

.

I made some new friends.

Driving through this country is an absolute feast for the eyes. It’s so varied too. On one side of the car are things like mountains and glaciers, while the other side is a lunar landscape.

We parked at the top of a big hill with hairpin curves on the road and saw the black sand beach. It was around 5 pm and it was still perfectly sunny.

The legend here is that this is a family of trolls who were attracted to the shore. They got caught by the sunrise and were turned to stone.

I love how the land is around half of the house. It must be so warm in winter.

This church is perched above Vik, the town we’re staying in for the next 2 nights. Vik has a population of 400.

Before dinner, the guys decided to go and walk on the black sand beach. Corinna wisely decided to stay in the room. Morgan snapped this photo of me emerging from the “short cut” they took.

I was starting to feel slightly grumpy. My thigh muscles were killing me and I was over the walking.

But look at how glorious it was. I couldn’t stay grumpy. I love these guys!