Iceland Trip Account - Day 9

Day 9

• That’s it. I failed. It’s terrible. I know. I missed a day. But there is a good reason for it! And we shall get to that later.
• Our first visit was returning to the waterfall “Skogafoss” for more of a walk that just being tourists. There is a steep stairway of 528 steps to get up to the stop of Skogafoss waterfall and once you’re on top you follow the river up. There are supposedly around 25 waterfalls up this river but after several kilometers of the same thing we turned back. Picturesque of course, but they were essentially less visually appeasing versions of the first one.
• Once we had returned from the walk we headed back towards Vik to “Reynisdrangar” where we had also visited previously however not quite as far as Vik. We had misunderstood the guide as to which black beach was the more famous one with the basalt columns so seen as we were nearby we decided to check it out. As soon as Alex and I saw it, we recognised it to being the set of Game of Thrones where the Dragon Glass is buried. The spectacular compressions and contortions of hexagonal basalt are formed from them cooling slowly hence forming a crystalline structure. If you look on the photo on the top half you will see it’s a bit more of a mess but below they are a lot more uniform. This is because of the different rates of cool each one has undergone.
• On our way back, soon after leaving the black beach of “Reynisdrangar” we were going down a gravelly road (not uncommon for Iceland) when suddenly we started hearing a loud thudding sound coming from one of the back wheels. 2 minutes later we pull up on a lay-by to examine and our concerns had become reality. The back right tyre of the Citroen was dead flat. Luckily there was a spare tyre tucked under the car (which took about 10 mins to work out how to get to) and we were efficient enough to get it up, removed and replaced within good time. from pulling up and then leaving however we had consumed a good half hour to and hour. So it was belly rumbling all the way home only getting in at 9:00.
• After eating, clearing up and showering I was far from ready to write a blog and took an early night in whilst Dad and JC made phone calls to the car hire to explain and get a tyre replacement first thing tomorrow morning. All in all we made it home though all together and I am now well equipped to change a tyre now. Good stuff.