Photo Friday: Jökulsárlón, Iceland

In the glow of morning light, with the sun starting to peek out from over the horizon, Iceland is only just waking up - the air is still cold from the night, you're still freezing, but everything is beautiful as Iceland always is.

Tucked away behind a small hill just by the side of the Ring Road in South-East Iceland lies Jökulsárlón, a glacier lagoon formed by the melting of chunks of Breiðamerkurjökull, a glacier tongue of Vatnajökull.

Interestingly, Jökulsárlón didn't exist 80 years ago - it started forming in 1934 as a result of environmental changes (*cough* global warming *cough*). The calving and melting of icebergs from Breiðamerkurjökull led to the formation of this lake, with a maximum depth of 220 metres deep, and all its floating icebergs!

Jonna, Josh and me - three red-nosed reindeer.

Jökulsárlón was actually surprisingly hard to find, given that it's a popular tourist spot - we missed it no fewer than three times, because it isn't clearly marked on the road - you'll have to slow down and look out for the Jökulsá river to find this gem. We wound up simply following all the other cars!

Everything was utterly silent in the morning, and as I listened I could hear the creaking of ice straining to break away from the glacier. It seemed at first completely unnatural - like the sound of an old rusty door, almost as if something awful was going to happen. And then again, and again, the only curious noise in all of the morning.

I'd never heard anything like that ever come from anything natural, and for a moment I thought the sound was of the earth going to split in two!

Crystal clear glacier blue icebergs.

Jonna looking totally at home in the snow.

Because everything was so cold and quiet, imagine my surprise when I noticed a tiny little bobbing head coming up from the water of the lagoon!

I know what you're thinking - seals in a glacier lagoon?! But there they were, with their little bobby heads and everything! Such adorable, cute little creatures. We also saw some birds that were either ducks or skuas just chilling out on a glacier (ha ha ha!)

Because glaciers are freshwater, you might think that any lake formed by them has to be freshwater too. In the case of most glacier melt, rivers and waterfalls, this is usually true - drinkable freshwater is abound in Iceland and I did drink from a fair number of natural rivers and streams.

But you would be in for a rude shock if you decided to take a swig from Jökulsárlón, because this lake opens out into the Atlantic ocean, meaning it mixes with salt water and isn't at all very tasty. (Josh now knows this first hand, since he filled up a bottle with Jökulsárlón water and proceeded to splutter and cough with how awful it tasted!)

And lastly, because I never know to conclude these Photo Fridays, I leave you with this picture of Jonna and me messing around on an old log that was just lying around. As all kids do. Well. Not quite a kid, but I'm convinced that I'm still young enough to play around and balance on logs without needing to feel guilty about it.