Day 189-puffins!

   July 11-Everyone was very slow to get around this morning, so Shan took advantage of the extra time and of the free wifi connection provided by the associated café to put up a blog post.  Falling behind again……


This turf structure at the campsite used whale baleen as decoration above the door.



We finally got on the road around noon and headed to Hvollsvöllur for gas. Then it was time to head east on Highway 1. We stopped at Seljandsfoss and walked behind it. Everyone got a little wet.

  

   We next stopped at the Dyrhólaey peninsula, the southernmost point of Iceland.  We took in Dyrhólaey and then Shan wandered over to see what a bunch of tourists were gawking at; puffins!  He quickly found the rest of the crew and informed them of this find.  We spent the next hour sitting on a promontory with a good view of the puffins on the cliffside.

  

   We finally tore ourselves away from the puffins and continued on into Vík, where we ate dinner.  Sated, we continued east across the great sandur deserts, arriving at the Skaftafell National Park in the early evening.  We decided to set up camp “early” (meaning before 8pm) and then the Hayses went on a hike to Svartifoss.  The columns in the cliff walls over which the river fell were quite beautiful.  We hiked back down, ate supper, and went to bed. 

We found the outward  bend of the columns to the left of Svartifoss very interesting.

The Skeiðarársandur desert, which results from periodic massive glacial outflow floods. 

In the 1920s, some of the river water was diverted from above the waterfall to flow through the pipe a short ways downriver into a makeshift generator, which supplied electricity for surrounding farms for nearly half a century. Locals built this electicity plant mostly from material scavenged from shipwrecks!

Camping below Öræfajökull, the highest point in Iceland at 7000 feet.

Sally’s folks got up to use the restroom around 3am and were so enamored by the sun striking  Öræfajökull that they sat down in the camp chairs and took in the view for a short while before going back to bed.