Completing our Circumnavigation of Iceland

Wednesday turned into a much quieter day than planned. We began in the drizzle with visiting Diamond Beach. This beach is where the the icebergs from the biggest glacier in Iceland melt into the sea. Apparently the gray weather means they look much bluer, the bluest one had just flipped over that morning. 

We then walked through to the lagoon and took a cruise on Jökulsárlón glacier lagoon.

The afternoon plan was for half the group to do some walks in Skaftafell National Park whilst the other half went glacier hiking but as it poured with rain us walkers hung out in the cafeteria for 3.5 hours instead. Then it was less than 2 hours to our hotel in Vik because again we didn't stop at any of the scenic spots as it was too misty to see much. This was our second night staying in a hotel that was built on a farm, they'd both expanded greatly over the years. 

Thursday morning began with a drizzly visit to Reynisfjara Beach, where hiking boots were the only appropriate footwear. It was pure dark grey gravel. Apparently many movies have filmed there, including Star Wars and Game of Thrones. The waves are so strong they have a special warning system as you enter the beach but still several people drown there each year. 

The stones get smaller the closet you get to the water.

We then headed to Seljalandsfoss Waterfall, where we discovered how close to Reykjavik we now were, as there were so many more tourists than we'd seen in days.

This waterfall was located in the middle of a farm. Iceland has over 10,000 waterfalls. 

Then it was to my favourite waterfall of the trip so far, Gullfoss Waterfall. It was very powerful, and had lots of elements to it. I'm very glad that it wasn't turned into a hydro electric station as an English company proposed to the farmer who owned the land in 1903. His 15 year old daughter fought against it and the English gave up on the idea and it eventually became a national park. 

My least favourite sight of the trip so far was next, Geysir. There were so, so many tourists there (there were 3 cruise ships at the port tonight) and it turns out only one active geyser, that wasn't as high as I expected. But I did get to see the original Geysir that all others around the world are named after, I never knew it was an Icelandic word. 

Make sure you watch to the end!

As we headed to Thingvellir National Park it started to rain again but we were still able to see the tectonic faults created by the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates shifting apart. This was also the sight of the original parliament of Iceland. 

This is the spot where parliamentarians used to execute "criminals" by putting them in bags and throwing them in the river to drown. 

The view from the toilet block!

Back in Reykjavik we headed out for a final dinner as half our group leave tomorrow whilst there rest of us still have two more days to go. 

An Unexpectedly Fabulous Day

Our itinerary for today indicated that it was a travel day with no sights to see but it was so incorrect. Our guide had told us we'd see puffins before we left our overnight village, so we were all excited for them. So we drove a couple of kilometres to the puffin nesting grounds and were told we'd be there for half an hour, 1.5 hours later we left because three pwhales appeared 15 minutes after we arrived! They jumped about a lot but didn't beach to our disappointment. It was far better than our whale watching tour though. We then stopped again on our way out off the village, when we saw another six whales.

We then drove about 1.5 hours to a national park that contained Hengifoss waterfall. It was about an hour to hike up to it but well worth it. The walk down was a little slippery in places with loose gravel on some rather steep parts. 

Can you spot the sheep? They run wild in the Highlands all summer but these are most unusual location we've seen them. In late September there is a huge gathering to collect all the sheep. Drivers have to pay a penalty of about US$200 if they run over a sheep.

On the way to our accommodation for the night (a hotel on a farm in the middle of nowhere!) we stopped in a fishing village where I tried the most Icelandic of cakes, Skyr cake. It's like a lighter and not so sweet cheesecake with a more flavourful base, which I really enjoyed. My first Icelandic hot chocolate was the first time I've been given a straw with a hot chocolate and it had crunchy gold sprinkles! This isn't how all Icelandic hot chocolates are but they do generally have whipped cream apparently.

We also stopped at a light house to take photos of the very different landscape, now we're further east and in glacier country.

Iceland the First Few Days

 On Saturday I flew from Dublin to Iceland, meeting my friend Dimity (who'd came from Launceston).  On arrival I went looking for a late lunch and discovered that the Icelandic Handknitting Association's shop was a few doors from my hotel. So I investigated it before obtaining some lunch and an hour later went back and made some purchases of the famous Icelandic yarn Lopi in case it's not open when we're back there next weekend. 

Saturday night we joined a gadventures tour of 18 people. Sunday morning we left Reykjavik and headed north for about five hours. I was amazed when we went through our first fjord tunnel, about 6km long. The government has built many of them to make travel easier for tourists and locals but is now also starting to build them between fishing villages and larger towns to get people to stay in those villages. Two thirds of the population are in the capital. 

When we arrived in Akureyri we headed straight out on a whale watching tour. It was a bit of a dud, we only really saw the fin and tail of a Northern Bottle Nosed Whale but the scenery was stunning. The hills changed colours in the light, purples, pinks and browns, amazing bit different show up in the photos I took. We did see a few puffins flying on the water, my first time to see them and I discovered they're much smaller than I had thought. It was freezing cold though, with a high of 8°C I had to keep reminding myself it is summer not winter. 

Today involved another early start to try and beat the  cruise ships but it seemed the Germans had gotten out very early. At one stop I counted nine cruise ship buses. 

Our first stop was at Goðafoss waterfall, this was where a leader of Iceland about a 1000 years ago supposedly threw away his Norwegian gods when he became a Christian.

We then checked out some 2000 year old lava fields and lakes in Dimmuborgir and some stinky thermal pools at Námaskarð.

After lunch we visited the most powerful waterfall in Europe. Dettifoss waterfall was quite impressive. It's also in the middle of lava fields and fed by a glacier we'll visit later in the week.

Then it was a three hour drive over a steep mountain to the fishing village of Bakagerdi which is becoming an economy based on tourism instead. Apparently people come to hike in the area and to see the puffins.