to be very honest, not only that jokulsarlon was the peak of our trip, hali was as well.

it was the closest accommodation to jokulsarlon(13.8 km. away to the east), but they don't just make money out of the location. hali offered 3 kinds of accommodation; hotel, guesthouse and apartment. the service was wonderful. we booked a room with shared bathroom, but when we arrived, they said the just renovated that building and it still smelled of paint, so we were upgraded to an ensuite room in the hotel building. (that was quite impressive since later on, we stayed at some places which had a strong smell of newly painted wall)  the room was spacious and the facilities were just perfect. there were extra shared bathrooms and showers even though every room in that building were ensuite.

they also offered a northern light wake up call service, free of charge. but we weren't lucky enough to see any.

on our second stay (one week later), the hotel was probably fully booked. this time, they didn't upgraded us to an ensuite room, but they did ensure us that our room wouldn't smell of paint. and it didn't. though the building (this was the guesthouse part) was a but older and the facilities were as great. the room was also smaller. but of course, that's why it was cheaper.

kitchens in both building was well equipped with milk for coffee and various sorts of tea (more in the hotel building, there was even a instant coffee machine there) shared bathroom was new and convenience. they would also do your laundry for 1,000 isk a batch if you ask them to.

the best part of hali, however, was this:


breakfast!!!!!! i could write a page long on how tasty hali's breakfast was and how i deliberately eat breakfast from seven thirty to ten. the best of the best was the bread. 3-4 different kinds of warm, freshly-baked homemade bread were there for me, a bread lover, to indulge in the crispy crust and soft, warm inside. people at hali could bake perfect bread. other than that they had everything a buffet breakfast should have, including cake and homemade waffles.

writing this absolutely makes me miss the place so much. and i would definitely visit hali again.

we all agreed that this part of the country was our favourite, especially my dad. for him, it was divine. he even decided, at the end of our trip, to drive around half of the island just to visit jokulsarlon again before we flew home.

yeah, for him it was that great.

but well, for me, too.

we left vik quite early in the morning, so our plan to have lunch at kirkjubaejarklaustur was impossible. but it would be impossible anyway even if we have left later, because most of the restaurants were closed. the choices were a fast food restaurant at n1 or supermarket.

so we bought some bread, veggie and ham to make sandwich for lunch.

as we drove closure and closure to the enormous skaftafell-vatnajokull national park, more and more of white mountains appeared, and eventually this gigantic glacier became visible on the left side of the road.


it war really huge, massive, gigantic, humongous, enormous and every other synonyms available in english language. and we went whoa and wow we slowly approached skaftafell visitor centre.

just the sight of this glacier from the road was fantastic enough to take my breath away.

we decided to hike to svartifoss. it was kind of a must and it was only 1.8 km. loop trail, which was totally worth it. the walk was easy, climbing up and down for a while. and the waterfall was absolutely impressive. even though i imagined it would look even better in spring and summer when everything would be green and mossy.


from svartifoss, you can decide whether to walk 200 m. more on a loop to a viewpoint or going back on the same trail. but let me tell you, the viewpoint was so breathtakingly stunning. the range of white mountains was literally right in front of you. it was like 200 degrees of mountain view. not 360 degrees, i know, but still, it was magnificent.

i often ran out of adjectives to describe how wonderful things were, especially during these few days we explored the south of vatnajokull national park.


back to the main road, we turned on a small gravel road called svinafellsjokulsvegur, and it was a great turn we made. about midway into the glacier, there was a great view of the other glacier on the left with a lava field as a foreground.


at the end of this unpaved road, there was a few-metre-long trail which gave us an access very close to the glacier. i went to new zealand twice, but the sight of icelandic glaciers made me forget what new zealand had to offer (in terms of glacier, of course) first, the size of it completely blew my mind away. second, how near we could get to the glacier without local guide was just amazing.


back on the ring road, we continued towards jokulsarlon. but…we found a hidden gem, a better sarlon that jokulsarlon. it was fjallsarlon, situated about a kilometre off the ring road and around 10 kilometres on the west of jokulsarlon. actually, there were two ways you can access this lake. one was that road i mentioned, and unpaved road called fjallsarlonvegur. the other, which we found out later, was 1.8 kilometres west of fjallsarlonvegur. this road took us closure to the glacier and we could actually walk really close to the glacier (if we had time, unfortunately) i wasn't sure if there would be a lot of icebergs in this lake in summer, but when we were there the amount of ice was just perfect, and unlike jokulsarlon, the glacier was really close to us. my favourite glacier lagoon in this trip!


but jokulsarlon was not bad. it was really, really huge and filled with loads of icebergs. we could easily step on one of the icebergs when we walked down on tiny beaches.  made a mental note that we should not forget binoculars no matter where we go, because on the left side of the bridge, we saw so many seals in the lagoon. it would be just perfect to have binoculars and be able to see those little faces playing cheerfully in the water.


and of course we couldn't miss the black sand beach in jokulsarlon. another nature wonder which just proved my old  belief wrong. who said sea, icebergs, beach and snow don't fit together? it looked perfectly normal here.


the first time we were there, we were fascinated by how many pieces of icebergs were on the black beach. we spent hours there during dusk and dawn, which was the best time to photograph icebergs on the beach. and we were very lucky by the fact that every day during our stay, it was always low tide during dusk and dawn (and that made it a whole lot easier to photography as we didn't have to run from the waves that often)

one week later on our second visit, however, we were stunned by how much ice and snow had melted away. like more that half of icebergs in the lagoon was gone, and only 30% was left on the beach. it reminded me again that global warming really existed. (yes, after a whole week of snow, snow and snow, i needed a reminder that global warming existed)
the only thing i regretted not doing (or not having a chance to do) was the crystal cave tour. because we were there in april which was not the season to visit these caves (as it might melt and collapse when we were inside…) they only do the tour from november to march.

and the only option i have right now is to go back there again.