Breakfast around 8am, it is raining hard so we take our time to get ready for today. We drive up to the Skeiðará Bridge Monument but it is raining so hard that we drive furter up Route 1 to Lómagnúpur (where we cannot take any nice pictures due to the rain and fog) and we came back later when the rain stopped. This time we are able to take some great pictures with the Skeiðarárjökull and Svinafellsjökull glaciers in the background.
This monument is made of the remnants of the Skeiðará Bridge. Once the longest span in Iceland, the Skeiðará Bridge comprised a portion of the Icelandic ring road. The bridge carried drivers across the Skeiðarár Sandur, a wide plain of black volcanic sand marbled with creeks of run-off from the Skeiðarárjökull glacier. In 1996, the volcano Vatnajökull, which sat beneath Skeiðarárjökull, erupted, melting portions of glacier and creating massive floods. While the girder bridge was built to withstand a hefty amount of flood waters, there was no preparing for the house-sized icebergs that the floods washed down the plain. A number of these glacial shards crashed into the bridge, wiping it out and creating a gap in the main ring road around Iceland.
We drive further to the Skaftafell parking '1'. We walk to the visitors center and look around, then to the car waiting a bit for our meeting time for the Blue Ice Experience.
Then around 2.15pm we put on our rain paints and we go to the meeting point, rent hiking boots because you must wear high boots to protect our ancles, then the crampons, ice axes, harness and helmet. We are with about 10 participants including our great guide 'Fi'. First we get on a special bus with high tires to drive us at the foot of the glacier. We drive on a very bumpy road (see the first and last video). Then at the bottom of the glacier we get out and the walk starts. First part is a steep rock climb, Further we have to put on our crampons and start walking on the ice. Suddenly we hear a crack, Fi reassures us that it is normal, it is ice collapsing underneath us, it was the second time she hears this on this kind of walks. Later on we hear some ice falling of the glacier. Then we walk around the glacier for about two hours and get some nice information from Fi. Then we start our descend and around 5.30pm we arrive at the bus. Bumpy road back and we return all our gear and drive back to the hotel. Nice shower and dinner at 8pm