Exploring Jökulsárlón Glacier Lagoon and Diamond Beach in South Iceland
Jökulsárlón Glacier Lagoon is an wonderful spectacle that you are going to want to knowledge on your excursion to Iceland. It is a 5-hour travel (without the need of stops) from Reykjavik but really worth the journey and can be blended with a several nights absent from the funds as there are numerous other sights together Iceland’s south coastline. You will discover it by driving together the country’s main ring Route 1 ring road, between Höfn and Skaftafell – a lovely push with beautiful sights of waterfalls and glaciers en route.
Located on the edge of the Vatnajökull National Park in southeastern Iceland, the Jökulsárlón Glacier Lagoon is the place the Breiðamerkurjökull Glacier, one particular of thirty outlet glaciers from the Vatnajökull ice cap, helps make its way in direction of the sea. There is enough free of charge parking in the vicinity of the lagoon, moreover a motor vehicle park shut to the beach front to the south of Route 1.
The glacier as soon as arrived at the Atlantic Ocean but has because receded by about 5 miles, leaving a lake amongst the glacier snout and the sea. Since the 1970s, the dimensions of the lake is mentioned to have enhanced four-fold in measurement and is now considered to be the deepest lake in Iceland.
My photos in this article do not do it justice but it is this kind of an legendary, unbelievable view that the area has been utilized for action scenes in two James Bond movies (A Perspective to a Destroy and Die One more Working day), as nicely as in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and Batman Begins. Eager followers of the US Television set sequence Amazing Race may well also recognise it.
It’s right here that Breiðamerkurjökull Glacier satisfies the drinking water and calves. Calving is a method of glacial ablation (melting) which sees masses of ice break off from the glacier and enter the water. These icebergs can be of various dimensions and float in the lagoon prior to sooner or later melting absolutely inside the lake or making their way out to the Atlantic.
Experienced we additional time, we’d have taken 1 of the cruises on the lagoon but right after our Katla ice cave tour and snowmobiling journey on Mýrdalsjökull, unfortunately there just weren’t adequate hours still left in the working day. You can just take a cruise on a massive amphibian boat or, for an experience that will allow you to get even closer to the towering ice bergs, experience on lesser rib boats (zodiac tours). If, like us, you are unable to fit this into your routine, you can nonetheless delight in the scene from the water’s edge.
This amazing lagoon is also a wealthy sea habitat for gray seals. Occasionally they can be observed on the resting on the floating icebergs but keep your eyes also on the lake as there’s a superior likelihood you are going to see some bobbing all over in opposition to a backdrop of wonderful Arctic scenery.
Seals can evidently also sometimes be observed on Diamond Beach, altough none were being current at the time of our check out. Diamond Seaside is just a brief 5-moment stroll from the lagoon along a path that runs under the Route 1 bridge. It’s wherever the icebergs that float from Jökulsárlón Glacier Lagoon are washed back onto the shore, following producing their way to the ocean.
Of training course, acquiring expert extra melting, they are likely to be a lot scaled-down by the time they are washed up on to the beach front.
Even so, all this glacier ice scattered throughout the shorline, battered by the waves from the sea, is in alone very a sight.
Ice with a superior bubble material tends to be really white in colour and translucent…
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…whilst ice with a very low air written content tends to be crystal obvious – virtually glowing like jewels in the sand – hence the identify Diamond Beach front.
These crystal clear chunks of ice, eternally weathered by the ocean’s ebbing tide, are genuinely quite a sight, specially when the mild catches them.
Their glassy texture contrasts beautifully with the beach’s black volcanic sand.
If you can, make certain you include Jökulsárlón Glacier Lagoon and Diamond Seashore on your Iceland itinerary to see Mom Nature at her very best. It is a sizeable drive to get there, but it’s a magical place that makes it a lot more than value the effort.
My suggestion would be not to try to do the journey as a working day journey from Reykjavik but as an alternative to acquire a several days travelling alongside the south coast as there is so significantly to see in this portion of Iceland.
Organizing a journey to Iceland you? You can view a video clip from our excursion to Iceland listed here. You are going to see footage from Jökulsárlón Glacier Lagoon and Diamond Beach in between 4m 59s and 5m 12s:
Disclosure: Our vacation to Iceland was also sponsored by Helly Hansen.