Stormy day across South Iceland

The weather report was not good for today, but we had to get over to our next hotel, down the south coast, so headed off after another good breakfast spread. We stopped at Seljalandsfoss, where we walked behind the waterfall & saw several others further along the cliffs.

It was raining & windy by our next stop, Skogafoss Waterfall, so we skipped the walk to the top and just took some photos at the base before getting back into the Duster and pressing on to Vik. It was crazy windy & stormy as we drove, and we passed a small tour bus that had clearly rolled of the road, people already had been removed. When we entered the town to Vik, there was a large truck blocking the road out of town with a sign noting the road was closed.

We ate lunch at The Soup Company and stopped at a grocery store & souvenir store area, trying to kill some time & hoping the weather conditions would improve. We were right at the Reynishfjara black sand beach, so I crossed to the edge for some photos in the storm, though everyone else stayed dry in the car. Vik is about an hour from our hotel in Kirkjubæjarklaustur, and we decided to try the road.

We were behind a bus heading out of town, and passed a sign that was mostly in Icelandic, but did flash to say “closed” in English. Shortly passed the sign, the tour bus pulled off into a parking lot. There was no barrier or blocking vehicle, so Donny decided to keep going.

It was a very tense & quiet car ride, with mye fighting the winds, sometimes with the steering wheel angled sideways in order to keep us going straight down the road. We crossed lava fields with the car buffeted by very high winds, and did eventually make it into Kirkjubæjarklaustur, again passing a vehicle blocking traffic out of town along the road we just drove.

When we got to the hotel, the front desk clerk was surprised we were there, as that road we drove was closed & no one should have crossed it, as the winds were hurricane strength. Hotel Klaustur was the largest place we stayed, with a bar & restaurant inside the hotel. We just stayed inside for the night.

Skogafoss Waterfall. Not much for pics today, weather was awful.

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