Iceland 19: Jokulsarlon (part one)

Reluctantly we left Hoffellsjokull and followed the track back to the main road, continuing our journey towards Jokulsarlon.  The scenery was so spectacular that we stopped several times on the way, but we still had a fair distance to travel before seeing the icebergs so pressed on.

The lagoon itself is well hidden from the road, but the car park was heaving when we arrived.

It's not clear where all the people went, though, because it was possible to avoid 95% of them simply by walking along the shoreline or up a hill in order to get a good view of the bergs.  Most people seemed to have bought tickets to go on the "boat" (actually an amphibious craft, which will be illustrated in the next post), but simply looking at the icebergs from the shore was free.  It was incredibly beautiful, and we were lucky with the dull, even lighting with rainy hills in the background.

It's impossible to give a sense of scale to the place, but I attempted another panorama which hopefully shows what this magical location is like.  Again, there's a video which may give a better idea.

Jokulsarlon (literally, Glacier Lagoon) is simply breathtaking.  As before, many apologies for the repetition, but I found it very difficult to whittle the picture selection down to this set from the several hundred I took on the day.  The occasional Arctic Tern may give a sense of scale to the bergs, some of which are truly enormous and drift by in a slow and stately manner.

Just be thankful I managed to reduce the selection to this few. I've got plenty more if you're interested...