On our final approach to Skaftafell, the section of the Vatnajokull National Park where we planned to spend a couple of days, we crossed the dramatic Skeiðarársandur, the largest sandur in the world, covering a 1,000 sq km area. It has swallowed up a large amount of farmland and is still growing. This is a desert like plain of glacial scrape and volcanic sands. It stretches 40 km between the ice cap and the coast and is known for strong winds and fast-flowing glacial rivers.
The last section of the Ring Road was finally constructed here in the mid 1970's; otherwise you had to drive around the north past of the island to get to the east coast. Dykes were constructed to channel floodwaters away from the road, but in 1996 three steel bridges were washed away in a flood caused by the eruption of the Grímsvötn volcano beneath the icecap. A section of a twisted steel bridge functions as a memorial to the power of volcanoes and glaciers.
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| glacier tongues in Skaftafell |
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