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The South Coast of Iceland and Vik Stacks

The south coast of Iceland is home to these extraordinary rock formations near the Vik community Water spouting from a crack in the cliffs A single road runs around Iceland. Only tracks penetrate the interior. In the north and west there are places to which one can divert before returning to continue the circuit, but in the south the road is confined by hills and glaciers to a narrow route and even this insubstantial tarmac tread is frequently overcome either by the glaciers or the sea. It is like all of Iceland, eerily beautiful, running by small green hamlets or out across desolate plains of melt-water and black ash. Horses, the small Icelandic variety, are the commonest livestock A stream with scrubby birch which grows to a foot or so vertically then continues, often for some considerable length, horizontally. Very occasional defiles allow the trees sufficient protection to grow to a more familiar form as shown to the right Grazing is afforded beteen the hills and the sea Iceland is rich in spectacular waterfalls often tumbling for hundreds of feet A house sat-upon by the crags Water takes so many forms A turfed roof house in one of the hamlets that line the road The bounding hills near Vik where they turn to precipitous crags Vik church and village The hills along the coast are sometimes footed by black sand... ...and in other places by green fields and hamlets The new church at Kirkjubæjarklaustur with the mountains of the Vatnajökull National Park in the distance... ...since this picture was taken trees have grown up around the church and it is now harder to see As the road gets further east the meltwater from the glaciers combines with the black ash to create this desolate landscape Black sand banks Vik church looks out... ...over the volcanic black ash landscape... ...towards those stacks. The strangeness of this black volcanic outlook is underlined by the eruption, a hundred kilometres west of here, of the island of Surtsey in the mid 60s. The next page continues along the south coast of Iceland to a glacier which flows into the sea - Vatnajökull

Connections...

The last page took the viewer to the top of Mount Teide on Tenerife To a waterfall in Scotland To the islands (and some churches) of the Faroes

Saturday 9th December 2017