The south coast is a conveyor belt of waterfalls and it is very easy to see six in a day and remember none of them. The trick is to stop at fewer and stay longer, because they are all roughly the same from the car park and completely different from anywhere else.
Take a coat you do not mind soaking. Not a shower-proof one — a properly waterproof one, with a hood that stays up in wind, because at three of these you will be standing inside the spray for twenty minutes.
The second stop, where the path goes down to the pool rather than along the top. Photo: Suju.
The four
- Seljalandsfoss — the one you can walk behind. Do it, get wet, and then walk the ten minutes north to the one in the cleft, which most people miss.
- Skogafoss — climb the steps. The falls are better from halfway up than from the base, and the path at the top follows the river for hours.
- Kvernufoss — a twenty-minute walk from a car park nobody uses.
- Gljufrabui — inside a slot in the rock, reached by wading. Bring the shoes for it or do not bother.
The waterfall you remember is never the biggest one. It is the one you stood at for half an hour because the weather was doing something.
The one to skip
Not because it is bad, but because by four in the afternoon you will have reached your capacity for falling water, and standing in front of a fifth in failing light while cold is nobody’s idea of a good day. Drive on and have dinner instead.
