South Coast
Waterfalls, Coast and Puffins!
June 30, 2026
Because today promised a good weather day and tomorrow looks iffy, we decided to try to cram as much outdoor activity into today as possible. After checking out of our hotel, our first stop was about twenty minutes down the road, a 62 meter high waterfall called Skogafoss. The width and volume of water were impressive. Here is a photo.
After admiring this waterfall, we moved our car a short distance to take a slightly longer walk to another waterfall. A fifteen minute walk took us through a canyon to Kvernufoss, which has a straight drop down and allows visitors to walk behind it. This was another place where the waterfall spray will get visitors wet!
Photo of Kvernufoss to the right was taken on the approach, and below shows a close up. You can see people behind the falls. Below right is a photo of buildings at the folk museum near the waterfall.
To the right is another photo showing massive lupine blooms.
After, we returned to our car and drove east towards the town of Vik, population 300 or maybe 750, depending on source. Since the sun was still shining, we decided to visit Dyrhólaey Peninsula before lunch. We drove up to the lighthouse and parked our car. We spent about forty-five minutes walking around on the cliff top and viewing the black sand beaches in both directions as well as an impressive sea arch.
However, the highlight of the visit was being able to see hundreds of Atlantic puffins perched on the cliff and flying about. We surprised to see so many in the middle of the day, since most information indicates they would be out to sea and not sitting on the cliff. We were really pleased, as seeing lots of puffins close up is one of our goals for this trip.
Above are three views from around Dyrhólaey. The black sand beach in the top photo was visible from the puffin viewing spot.
Now here are some puffins. The first two show that there were lots of birds here.
After enjoying the bird viewing, we drove to the town of Vik and had lunch. We then drove about an hour east, even though this will cause us to back-track, because we wanted to enjoy the next sight in sunshine and not rain. After driving through an area almost devoid of human settlement, and getting some glimpses of glaciers in the interior, we reached Fjardargljufur Canyon. This impressive river canyon is about 100 meters deep and more than one kilometer long. We walked on a trail from the bottom of the canyon along the rim to visit four viewpoints. We enjoyed the bright sunshine, even with the howling wind, and got a work out climbing about three hundred feet to the top viewpoint.
Here are some photos from Fjardargljufur. Upper left, on the road toward the canyon; upper right, foot of the canyon; bottom right is view into canyon from upper viewpoint; and bottom left shows the area atop the canyon as well as what it is like when sunny!
Below is a shot into the center of the canyon.
We then headed back towards Vik and the bright sunshine turned to dark clouds and a small amount of rain. Our last stop of the day was just past the town, the black sand beach at Reynisfjara which is part of the UNESCO Geopark. In addition to the black sand and the ferocious surf, one end of the beach features basalt columns and a large sea cave. When we finished at the beach, we drove about twenty minutes back to the town of Vik, where we will spend just one night. It should be noted that Vik features “black sand” or “black salt” in many of its preparations and business names (e.g. “Black Crust Pizza”).
Here are some photos from the black sand beach. Bottom photo is close up of the basalt columns.
Here is the map of our route today on the south coast including places we will visit tomorrow. It was a full day, and we saw puffins, lots of puffins!
Tomorrow we will begin to put the “ice” in Iceland.
