Today we had booked an afternoon glacier hike and Katla ice-cave tour leaving from Vik at 3pm. This gave us quite a bit of time to undertake the one hour journey from Hella and do some stops on route. We left our AirBnb at 10.30am and it was another stunning morning and more snow had fallen over night.

^{Snowy scenes outside our AirBnb}

We headed out on the Ring Road in the direction of Vik and came across a bakery – Faxi Bakery – so decided to have a pitstop. As there was a huge car park which was full of cars and coaches we thought it must be ‘the’ place to visit! We bought some toasted paninis and then the read the signs as there was lots of information about Eyjafjallajökull – the volcano which had erupted in 2010 and closed the European airspace for a few days due to its dust cloud. We could also see the volcano!

We carried along the Ring Road and as we drove past Skogafoss (which we had visited a couple of days earlier) decided to stop again. Our photos from earlier were all dark and gloomy due to the grey sky and today the weather was so lovely we wanted to take more photos!

We began by playing along the riverside. There was a chunk of ice that was breaking away so we were seeing if we could stand on it without sinking in the river.

We then wandered to the waterfall. It was much less busy today so we were able to get some great pictures. As the sun was shining and it wasn’t so windy it did not feel so cold so we walked closer to the falls without worrying about getting wet.

^{Skogafoss with blue skies!}

We reached Vik at 1.30pm and still had time so visited the church which features in all the travel photos and went for a walk along the beach.

^{Vik Church and the views from its grounds}

^{Walking along Vik’s Black Sand Beach}

Glacier Tour

It was now time for our glacier tour and we needed to meet in the carpark outside the Supermarket. We knew we were in the correct place as there were two massive snow trucks parked up.

^{Snow trucks ready to go!}

We began by driving 10 minutes along the ring road and then across ice/snow fields onto the glacier. It was a very bumpy ride! We stopped and got out of the trucks ready for our short hike. The views were absolutely stunning especially with the sun so low in the sky.

^{Arriving on the glacier}

^{Exploring the glacier!}

We were kitted out with crampons and our hike began with an uphill walk along a snow track. The views behind us were beautiful and we could see our snow trucks and the people returning from one of the previous tours.

^{The views behind us on our uphill hike}

^{Our uphill hike}

Once we reached our highest point we walked down into a valley where we could see the ice arch.

We carried on for a few more minutes where we reached the ice cave. We were able to walk through it and the path followed a loop so took us back out again. Stu wasn’t paying attention to where he was walking and ended up stepping in the river and getting his feet soaked!

^{Inside the ice cave}

We left the cave and made our way down to the arch. We were not allowed to stand under the arch as they were worried about it collapsing. However, they had ice axes available so Tom, Izzy and Stu hacked away at some of the ice. The guide also took some family photos for us.

^{Playing with the ice axes!}

It was time to head back so we hiked out of the valley and back towards the trucks. We were given two options for the return – walk down the path or slide down the snow. Stu, Tom & Izzy decided to slide down whilst I opted for the path. Tom & Izzy were fine sliding down but Stu banged his hand and to this day is convinced he broke it as it hurt for weeks!

^{The fastest way back to the trucks!}

We took lots more photos before we had to return back to Vik. On the return the two trucks became a little bit competitive to see who could race off the glacier fastest – I’m sure they do it for all the tours! We really enjoyed this tour – probably one of the best organised activities we have ever done on a holiday.

^{Final photos before leaving the glacier}

Once back at Vik we bought some waffles and chocolate sauce to warm up and then drove back to Hella enjoying the sunset!

^{Sunset photos}