Skógafoss – Energy and Time

Iceland day 11: Svartifoss to Heimaey

We had camped just outside Svartifoss, and Carol woke up early and wanted to hike there. But I was feeling a bit beat up and decided to skip it in favor of a leisurely breakfast.

Me eating breakfast next to our black Dacia Dokker camper

Svartifoss (“Black Waterfall”, probably from the same root as the English “swarthy”) is known for it’s black hexagonal basalt columns, which tend to break away before they can be worn smooth, leaving fairly jagged rock. This is the same kind of rock as seen in Devil’s Tower in Wyoming.

another (unnamed?) waterfall on the hike

Then it was off for a long driving day.

There are tall thin waterfalls all over Iceland, in some areas one every kilometer or two.

Our next stop was Fjaðrárgljúfur, a canyon which is (sadly) most famous for Justin Bieber filming parts of a music video there, which increased the tourist load so much that it had to be temporarily closed in 2019.

I found two kinds of mushrooms on the way out.

This looked somewhat similar to a Liberty Cap (*Psilocybe semilanceata*), but I wasn’t about to ingest a foreign LBM to find out whether it was hallucinogenic or not. Also, the stipes seemed too thick and short, and there was no sign of blue or purple discoloration in the older specimens.

We stopped in Vík for lunch at Wok On Vík, an Asian fast food place.

Looking southwest. The 3 rocks in the distance are a famous landmark.

I had something in peanut sauce over brown rice, while Carol went for green tea noodles.

A delicate rock arch. Same 3 rocks in the distance, only this time east (behind us).

Onward to Skógafoss, a 60-meter falls (slightly taller than Niagara Falls).

Lots of spray. You get close, you get wet.

Seljalandsfoss, often described as the only Iceland waterfall you can walk behind, even though Kvernufoss also has that property.

Since we were a little ahead of schedule, Carol proposed that we visit Vestmannaeyjar (the Westman Islands). So we took the short ferry ride to Heimaey (“Home Island”), found a nice campsite (more on that tomorrow), and had dinner at Tanginn.