After yesterday's deluge it seemed positively tropical again in Djupivogur when we were packing up. Liam and Jon were well ahead as they booked earlier return flights so the rest of us. Today was more of a tourist day and road riding round the ring road as we were heading for the big tourist attraction of Vatnjokull. The largest glacier/ice sheet in Europe which covers approximtely 8% of Icelands surface.
Wikipedia will give you facts such as it covers 7,900 sq km, that's BIG, has an average thickness of 1,250 ft and a maximum thickness of 3,120 ft. Over 3,000 feet thick ice sheet, That's nuts, thats mind bogglingly thick. That's almost as thick as a lad at work who's van wasn't running very well. Another guy said to him, he should flush the engine out. Monday morning, he chugged into work with clouds of smoke and steam coming out of the exhaust. When asked what the hell was happening, he revealed that he had drained the engine oil, put a garden hose in the oil filler and flushed the engine with tap water, let it drain before filling with fresh engine oil. Yes, it's true.
Although I've said the ice cap is big, it's only when you're riding along the ring road for a good few hours seeing glaciers flowing down valleys, but realise that these aren't seprate glaciers, each one is just a tentacle from the main ice cap.
We stopped at a large car park by a bridge and a melt water lagoon filled with ice bergs drifting out to the sea. No matter how much you've read or seen on TV about global warming and it's effects, it doesn't prepare you for the sights of a glacier calfing and the ice bergs being swept ot to sea, especially when you find out that this lagoon didn't exist until relatively recently. The lagoon narrows down to a bottleneck where the river runs out to the sea underneath the bridge which leads to an ice dam forming, restricitng the flow of the water and bergs. It's both majestic and quite scary, hearing the grinding of the ice, the cascading water trying to escape and then Sammy the seal, swims around with a care in the world. All very stunning and thought provoking. However basic instinct meant my thoughts were provoked by food and John's by the need for petrol.
Like a prize dick, I left my spotlights on which were stupidly wired direct to the battery and flattened my battery (that's been rectified now), so had to go and scrounge a set of jump leads of a local. Luckily there's several Icelandic 4 x 4 pick ups that look as if they're prepared for Armagedon, rather than just an imbecilic English idiot.
On our way again John ran out of petrol a couple of miles short of petrol much to Christey's amusement. After fuel, the next stop was another sight Iceland seems to be over endowed with, waterfalls. Pretty simple though, throw in a cliff and a river and hey presto, waterfall, could do with a few more of those in the Sahara but Iceland is greedy and keeps most of them to themselves.
Next stop is a very scenic campsite, complete with beer from the shop, so it's tents up, stoves out and beer. Happiness.
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