On our first day with the car, we visited the Black Sand Dunes after lunch in Porlakshofn. These are accessible on a dirt road that the RAV4 handled just fine, but the people in the class C camper behind us didn’t take it all the way to the dunes. The road was soft sand and narrow. After we climbed the dunes and lava rock, we found the beach to be very long and very deserted. It was a wonderful place for a beach walk, and we could see a glacier in the distance.

On July 3 we reached the southernmost tip of Iceland at Reynisfjara Svarta Strondin and Reynisdrangur sea stacks and the town of Vik. This beach had black sand and pebbles/rocks and basalt column cliffs. The sea stacks are visible from a distance, even from the Dyrholaey Lighthouse that we visited first, which also had a sea arch. The middle stack hides from view at the beach.

Volcanic basalt is very hard so these rock formations are a result of erosion of softer rock around the basalt. Or they were once trolls that turned to stone with the rising sun.

When we checked into the Hotel Dyrholaey, the front desk suggested we go see the puffins that come in to roost at about 9:00. They come to the Vikurfjara black sand beach, which is in the town of Vik near where we at supper at The Soup Company. We got so lucky!!! Not only did we see hundreds of puffins fluttering in to land on the cliffs, but we saw a humpback whale pretty close to shore moving in circles to feed on small fish. There were a couple of other whales further out; we thought this one was just small enough to be in shallow water. When she turned on her side, we could see one flipper and one tail fluke above the water. A seal also popped up his head to watch us for a bit.