Ring Road (R1), Iceland, day 5

04/08/2022
Iceland road trip, on the Ring Road, day 5
From Kirkjubæjarklaustur to Skaftafell Campground, Vatnajökull National Park.
The day I could feel the mountain by climbing it and taking time for a 20kms hike and for climbing a mountain peak 1118 mts.
I was actually looking forward to this day, seriously. The plan was to follow a 17, 80 kms hiking trail we found on wikiloc made by Sextante. In my mind we needed to add up to it by climbing Kristinantidar... but as we had an hour on the road and left the campsite a bit late, I wasn't sure...
So, we drove to the starting point at the Information Centre at Skaftafell in the Skaftafell at Vatnajökull National Park.
We understood that this was a hiking trail, sounded great to me as I was missing the thrill of a challenge in the mountain.
The weather was better than you could wish for, as you will see in the photos. The hiking trail is very well marked with yellow marks on wooden poles and signals with directions, which gave us confidence to take the proposed challenge.
Before we entered the magical sphere of the mountain, we walked in a crowded path leading to Svartifoss waterfall which is surrounded by basalt columns. As we walked further away from the waterful, people disappeared and we submerged into nature's kingdom.
While we were walking, I couldn't stop myself from being amazed and trying to catch all the beauty and serenity through the limited frame of my smartphone camera lens. I don’t want to lose/ forget any bit of the grandiosity of the breathtaking scenery so this is a way to document the beauty of nature before me.
And so when we reached the pool with signals to diverging directions: one to to the way back to climb Kristinantidar and the other to continue the hiking path. We were half way, guess what was our choice?
.........
To be continued more photos and details asap😁