Iceland Day 3: Kerid Crater, Seljalandsfoss, Skogafoss, Vik (2017)

We started our third day with a drive to Kerid Crater (50 minutes).  Originally, this was part of our plans for day two, but since we got a late start and ran out of time then, and had plenty of time on the next day, we bumped it back.  There is a small entrance fee at Kerid crater, but it’s worth the cost.  You can walk entirely around the top of the crater and look down into the lake inside, and you can hike down to the lake and view it from inside.

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Next, we drove to Seljalandsfoss, which is another of the more popular spots in Southern Iceland.  Plan ahead for this one – prepare to get wet.  There aren’t many spots you can stand to try to take pictures without being coated with quite a bit of mist from the waterfall.  Seljalandsfoss is cool because there’s a path that actually takes you along to a little cavern, so you can view the waterfall from behind, which gives a completely different perspective.  Within walking distance of Seljalandsfoss is another, smaller waterfall called Gljúfrafoss.  It’s pretty obscured, and you can either walk along a trail to where the fall plummets into a pool, or you can do a little bit of rock climbing to get to a vantage point where you can see it from part of the way up, which is what we did.

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After leaving Seljalandsfoss, we drove to Skógafoss (25 minutes), also a very popular tourist site.  We walked along and in the shallow river produced by the waterfall to get pictures from in front of it (FYI – if you’re looking for a rainbow waterfall picture, this may be your best bet!).  We then walked up the stairs to the right of the waterfall to see the river and crest of the waterfall, which also gives really good views of the coastline to the other direction.  We actually took a short nap just laying in the grass at the top of Skógafoss, but if you wanted to and it was the right time of the year, you can hike along a trail that follows the river and cuts between two glaciers. 

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Our final stop of day three was to see the black sand beaches of Vik, specifically Reynisfjara (30 minute drive).  We both grew up along the white sand beaches and dunes of Lake Michigan, and this was about as different as you can possibly get while still being a beach.  We spent a while wandering the beach and playing in the black sand, as well as clambering around on the basalt columns (which provide excellent photo opportunities). 

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 We stayed the night at the Vík í Myrdal campground, a camping card site which unlike a lot of the other ones was actually just outside of the village of Vík.  We took advantage of that and ate at a real restaurant that night, since there was actually the option of doing so.