Iceland - South Shore Tour, part 2

We pick up our South Shore Tour adventure. You can find part 1 HERE.

We stopped first at the Skogafoss waterfall (again "foss" means waterfall). In some ways it feels as if you've seen one waterfall, you've seen them all. I still mist up a bit when I see the rainbow. This one went all the way across, alas there was no sign of a pot of gold. Perhaps that only happens in Ireland? There was an option to walk up a rickety set of stairs to go to the top for a view. I started up the stairs. Don blew past me. I started thinking about the wind and decided to stay down on terra firma. Wishing I wasn't such a wimp and climbed the stairs. After all I didn't see anyone else flying through the sky to their death. Why would I have been the first? Don captured some great pictures from up high.

The rickety stairs

On his way down

Look at the treads on that Ford.

From here we drove two minutes (yes, in my real life I would have walked) to my favorite part of the tour -- Skogar Folk Museum. There is an indoor part (much appreciated, by the way) showing parts of local history that was missing much context. There were fliers in English, but the slot was empty.

Some images from inside the museum:

Again, no context

An old telephone directory for the area.

Relieved to see my ancient flip phone
was not on display

Outside the museum is a sod farm showing how people used to live. Looking inside we were surprised by how spacious each house was. They looked much bigger on the inside than they did on the outside (just like elf rocks). The "village" was created in the 1950s. The one house was built in 1878 from driftwood from a stranded French ship. It was moved to this location in the 1980s.

Outside of a sod house

Inside a sod house

Inside the church (which was not a sod building)

Another sod house

The big house built in 1878

Inside the big house

Back in the bus for a quick ride to Seljandsfoss, otherwise known as the waterfall you can walk behind. Sounds cool, right? Very "cool," and very muddy, especially on a cold windy day. This one I was brave enough to do. As we drove by other waterfalls, I noticed some of them were running up instead of down. I should have taken a picture, but it would have been hard from that distance. Even in this picture you can see how some of the water is not quite reaching the ground. Yes, it was that windy. Some views as we walked around the waterfall. Of course the Jungle Cruise line of "seeing the backside of water" ran through each of our minds.

Back side of water, everyone

My camera lens was just a little too wet at this point

Did I mention it was a little muddy?

We hightailed it back to Reykjavik, arriving before 7:30 PM and began the hunt for dinner, and a last chance to walk around the city on this trip. Fortunately by then it was not as windy.