Southern Iceland

This was my second visit to Iceland. We booked as it would be our first foreign travel in almost 2 years due to the Covid 19 Pandemic and Iceland seemed to have the most lenient travel restrictions and procedures meaning it would be less likely to have the disappointment of cancellation. Furthermore there has been a fair bit of volcanic activity on the island over the past year – that is until I booked the trip… Pretty much the following day the active and erupting Fagradalsfjall volcano began to reduce its activity drastically meaning that we would miss any spectacular photo opportunities. Nevertheless, Iceland is always visually impressive.

Its been so long since going on a trip, I really lacked motivation to spend time and effort taking photos and therefore when I got home I was kind of disappointed with my efforts. I also hoped to make the most of using my drone out there with some near disastrous outcomes!

The black sand beach at Vik was one of the highlights of my trip, having not visited this particular beach on my previous visit. The waves were epic and I took hundred of photos here. Apparently it’s the location for Game of Thrones…

Another surprising highlight was the ‘Icelandic Lava Show’ – not exactly the kind of thing I’d sign up for but it had been recommended by a couple of people we met on our trip so we signed up and wow – it was incredible. We both learned so much about volcanos, lava and in particular the glacier capped volcano Katla, which overshadows the small town of Vik. It is one of the world’s most active volcano and is 103years overdue a massive eruption – the impact of which has the potential to affect millions across the world and totally wipe out the town of Vik with glacial volcanic flood waters greater than the volume of the worlds 4 biggest rivers plummeting down the mountain. The founder of the show is the great grandson of a farmer who was on the mountain in 1918, when the volcano last erupted and narrowly missed the floods and devastation cause by Katla. The show involved. Julius explained, in depth the properties of lava and the effect of ice on lava, and the geology of Iceland before pouring real 1200*C lava out into the auditorium, heating the room to uncomfortable levels instantly. It was a really fascinating experience.

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