Nate Buchanan and Kayla Sims explore Iceland's Black Diamond Beach, where chunks of glacial ice wash ashore, and Skógafoss waterfall. They drive long distances between spots, deal with brutal wind, and grab whatever food they can find, from hot dogs to ramen.
Questions this video answers
Day three.
About two and a half to four hours in different segments (driving ~2.5 hours east to Diamond Beach; later mentioned nearly four hours to the beach).
US$30 for a quarter tank.
US$16.
Vík.
Chapters
Let's go one at the end.
I'm a furious away. Somebody else needs to open it.
Barrett, is it recording?
Yeah.
It's day three of our trip to Iceland, and we have driven about 2 and 12 hours west across the south coast, headed to a glacier, hopefully, and the ice beach.
I thought you said we were going east.
No, we were going west.
Oh, shoot.
We're going east.
We're drive. We've driven two and a half hours east en route to.
I've told you I shouldn't do this.
Diamond beach. And we're somewhere in the middle of nowhere, and we just stopped for PB and bananas. I was gonna say and Jay's.
Because the chicken sandwich from the gas station was $16.
It actually was $16.
You got fries with it.
We also filled up the gas tank for the first time this morning.
US$30 for a quarter of a tank. Quarter of a tank for $30. Ice is quite expensive, which is why we're eating PB&J. Icelandic peanut butter.
I do want to point out that yesterday I ate cereal, peanut butter and jelly and ramen noodles. But we put the egg in the.
Ramen insta story, so it made it fancy ramen.
Caleb wanted to make a logo that was ours as well. Literally take the logo from y' all and put K and B on it. Yes.
Like, dressed as trolls, but they're Internet trolls.
Lunch is over.
We just made it to our first iceberg lagoon. I'm telling you this in the car because it is so windy out there. I don't know if we're gonna be able to talk. Wait.
Kayla. No.
Kayla, this is crazy. It's, like, pushing me as I walk right now.
Not even sure if you're gonna be able to hear me right now. But the wind was blowing so hard when we were driving here that we were passing a lady on a bike, and the wind almost blew her into our car. It was very scary. Probably a lot more scary for her. I was not prepared for this.
Can't even see me smiling. I'm still warm.
Why aren't you walking straight? I feel like I have to lean into it to walk straight. Whoa. There's ice.
That was cool. It's crazy.
Black sand beach. I just want to pick this piece of ice up and put it over here, like in the wave, so we can get a better picture.
Oh, it's not as heavy as it looks.
Oh, it's coming. That was a big one.
Where did the ice go? It's going away. This is exactly what I wanted.
So we drove almost four hours to get to this beach because we saw incredible pictures of this place called Black diamond beach on the Internet. And then we got here, we were like, oh, there's just some really tiny pieces of ice on a beach. But it's one of those places that, like, you can make look so good on Instagram and you come in real life and maybe you're a little disappointed. But if you look at it, like, on a macro level, like through the lens, like a piece of ice sitting on the black sand, it is incredibly beautiful. And it's still really pretty, but it's just, like, not what the picture showed on the Internet. Also, we're here in the summer, so maybe the ice gets a lot better in the winter. That would make sense. Whoa, that one's huge out there. I thought it was. There's an iceberg. Legit one.
Look how big it is.
Time change. All the huge ice chunks are coming to the beach.
Look at them all out there. They're all coming out of the river right now. Wow, this is so crazy. When we showed up at the beach, there were, like, ice chunks the size of basketballs, and now there's ice chunks the size of cars, like, 30 minutes later. This is so cool. We got to get our shot. Go look at it.
Whoa. Yes. Oh, it's coming for me.
Sam.
So forget everything I said about diamond beach being underwhelming. That was incredible. It's crazy how quickly it changed. I have no clue what it was. I assume it was like the tide, but all of the ice just came rushing into the ocean and started washing up on the beach. It was awesome. But I'm a little, like, sick to my stomach right now because I went to the car to get the drone and I left the batteries.
So you didn't get drone footage of, like, one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. But it's okay. It was still a lot of fun. I did get one of my favorite pictures of Cara that I've ever gotten, so that'll show up.
And now we are going to the lagoon where all this ice is coming from in the first place. Somewhere back over there.
So this is where all the ice is coming from.
Well, that was incredibly beautiful. Unfortunately, everything I see that's incredibly beautiful is like a double edged sword, because I love it. But at the same time, it just makes me more sad that I don't have the drone. That would have, like, been the best ever.
It would have been the best ever.
I didn't even think about It.
Nate. Where were they plugged in? They're in my black backpack, which I just didn't throw in the car today.
It's yellow.
Oh, wow.
Yeah. So we've now driven about two hours back towards where we're staying. We are in a town called Vik, one of the very few towns here in Iceland that I can pronounce. And we've stopped for what I believe is traditional Icelandic food. A hot dog from the gas station. I don't know if this was the best place to get my first Icelandic hot dog, but it's not bad. It's cheap. Kara chose no hot dog. She went with a cup of noodles instead.
I got the noodles too.
So cup of noodles and hot dogs for dinner. So there is a store that is connected to this gas station. There's actually. Oh, there are gas stations.
Restaurant instead of store here.
This is. We're eating at a gas station. This is a gas station.
That is a cafe. The next one is a restaurant.
It's all one building. Okay, well, the cafe is like 15 for a hamburger. And they move over to the restaurant. Restaurant. Then it's $50 for a plate of.
Lamb, $25 for a pizza.
So hot dogs and ramen. So here we are. Okay. But it's totally worth it because Iceland is incredibly beautiful. Are we doing the waterfall after this?
We need to.
After this, we're going to an incredible waterfall. We're hitting a hot dog for.
Oh, it's still too hot.
We're going to Skog Falls. I'm so sorry.
Just had. I said dinner. We do not have to use that. I prefer that you use Neon Mountain. Dinner and the hot dog.
Welcome to Skogevoss. The largest waterfall Skogefoss that we've seen.
That's all I know. It is 9:30pm and it's still light enough outside for us to see one last amazing thing here in Iceland.
It's huge.
Potentially the biggest waterfall, but we have not verified that yet.
There was the sign back there, but we passed it because we want to get a picture before it gets dark.
It's cold.
It's getting dark. But there's a bunch of steps that lead up to the top of the waterfall. So we have to go up there. You only have Skull Falls once. Let's go.
We're working off the hot dogs and ramen all the way to the top.
Okay, that's enough.
Slow stairs.
Tired. I did have ramen noodles for dinner two nights in a row, so.
You're making us look bad. What they do CrossFit and CrossFitters.
Back down we go.
So much energy.
I love going down. We're currently driving to find a hidden gem of Iceland. And it's dark outside, so we're gonna go up and hopefully take a dip in the pool. Geothermal po.
See that?
Pine Cove Christian Camps.
You can't just promote anything you want on our blog at Pine Cove Camps. T barretsims. Kayla Sims.
You don't know my Instagram?
No, I don't.
Kaylafrancis1.
Follow my handle here.
Click between my hands. This what you think of us?
Yeah, you.
Hey, guys, it's me. And it's me again.
Is that not what you wanted? This is like studio lighting. Feel famous, though.
