Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Iceland - PART 1
Back in the amazing world of Iceland for Ant's third visit and Nat's second (and Alice's first)! We flew in bright and early on the morning of Monday 8th September, landing at about 9:30am local time. We were very quickly reminded of the relaxed and carefree attitude (and also how few people are here) which we love about this country, when we got to passport control to find they'd closed up and gone off for coffee. We had to ask the service desk to call security for someone to come down and let us enter the country. Down swaggered this burly icelandic man with a big belly who, tongue-in-cheek demanded "what do you want?". "Can we come in please?" To which he responded; "you are already in yes?" He then (barely) checked our passports before randomly exclaiming "Australia!?" and then opened the door and let us enter the country! Our rental car company owner met us at the gate with our name on a sign (we went for a small icelandic company this time over the big ones for the service - and it paid off as you will hear!) and we picked up our 4x4 Suzuki Grand Vitara and were on our way!
First stop was Bonus, a supermarket chain with a winking piggy bank pig as their emblem and which became our most regular visit due to the need to prepare our own meals to make this super expensive country somewhat more affordable. Then we were off again to the Blue Lagoon for some geothermal spa bathing and then onwards to our accommodation for the night at the aptly named Hotel Ranga (Alice is a natural red-head and gets very rangry!).
Tuesday was one of our busiest sight-seeing days as we first visited the black sand beaches of Vik and walked the nearby cliffs hoping to spot some remaining puffins (no luck - they've all left the mainland of Iceland by mid August). Next we continued on to Skaftafell, a mountain at the front of the enormous Vatnasjokull, Europe's largest glacier, for a short walk and a waterfall before continuing on to our final stop for the day; the Jokusarlon glacial lagoon. This was hands down the most spectacular sight we saw in iceland save the Northern Lights. Giant pieces of blue ice floating in a freezing lake, making all kinds of amazing shapes and impressions and boating out on a small rubber dingy to the edge of the glacier where pieces are continuing to break away, we were on a massive high from the excitement. Check out our photos! That night we slept at a nearby hostel.
Day 3 was a big driving day as we hauled it to the east coast and drove up and down huge mountains lining fjord after fjord, ploughing through tunnels hewn out of the sheer rock and flying down steep declines opening up to remote villages. Stopping for lunch overlooking a fjord was a highlight, as was our hostel where the hosts were really generous and gave us 2 rooms when we'd only booked one due to the price - standard icelandic generous hospitality! One funny thing that happened which reminded us of where we were was when we went for a walk around the town we were staying in noticed the streets were especially deserted even for Iceland. After a while a car drove up, the windows wound down and a girl told us that it was recommended for people to stay inside due to the Sulphur in the air from the ongoing Bardabunga fissure eruption underneath Vatnasjokull. We spent the rest of the night trying to diagnose mystery symptoms we thought we were having from breathing in the air! Turns out we were okay..
Thursday was day 4 and another big driving day as we had lots of plans for 2 days of exploring the volcanic area surrounding the scenic Lake Myvatn near the second largest city in Iceland of Akureyri. But first we had to get there. An early start and some great open roads allowed us to arrive by early afternoon and begin our explorations. These included visiting some very stinky (sulphur dioxide?) hot mud pools where steam was pouring out and mud bubbled at extreme temperatures (up to 200 celsius) right in front of our eyes, an extinct volcanic crater, and a town where they steam a traditional Icelandic malty rye bread for 24 hours and which tasted awesome! Our accommodation that night was the first of two nights in a log cabin in the middle of a forest complete with hot tub and creepy icelandic dolls that freaked Alice out.
Day 5 was dedicated completely to Myvatn area explorations, and included a hike to the top of another extinct volcano, this one still a very volcano looking round shape with proper rim around the top and crater inside - very cool but unbelievably windy - lesson learned don't try peeing at the top of a volcano! We also visited a very cool cafe on a dairy farm for some treats and also lots of locations where volcanic rock had settled and formed amazing shapes either on the land or even in the lake from eruptions thousands of years ago! That night was the highest point of the trip when, as we were relaxing in our hot tub, Nat suddenly pointed at the sky and screamed. This obviously at first scared the absolute crap out of us as we thought the lid of the tub was about to close on our heads and knock us out. But then we looked higher and immediately saw them; the northern lights. The show that we then witnessed over the next 30 minutes or so was the most spectacular natural phenomenon any of us had ever seen. Describing it is very difficult however the term 'dancing' is a very appropriate word as the lights and colours appear to move and dance around the sky as you watch. We were very lucky to not only see green lights appear but purples and blues which apparently only occurs when the activity level is quite high! Add to this he fact that the time to see the lights is September to March but best around Xmas and we count ourselves very lucky to have seen such an unbelievable sight! Check out our photos which aren't amazing but somewhat captured them.
- comments
karen once again a great incite into Iceland - especially their rainbows!!