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October 5, 2015February 3, 2017

Iceland – day 10

Amazing start to the day – the breakfast was provided as part of the accommodation arrangement and everything was grown on site. Home made pancakes/jam/porridge/flat bread as well as local orange juice, cheese & yoghurt plus a thermos of freshly brewed coffee. Just outstanding!

Our breakfast – took a doggy bag for half of it!

Today’s driving was a bit more intense – 3h40 or so, but we had read that there wasn’t much to see as a lot was barren ground. And they weren’t wrong… once we hit the top of the moutains, the temperature plummetted and at one stage it was 0 degrees outside the car. Honestly, if a movie was made there and the plot was set on Mars, you wouldn’t have to do any CGI, it’s so unusual and there’s nothing for miles!

The same terrain stretched on for ages. Nothing grows, no sheep or anything

It did mean that we could actually get some of the kms done without interruption for once, so that was good. But with about 1h20 left to go, we came across more geo-thermal activity. Again, more ammunition this is actually a movie set with boiling mud pools, steam everywhere and what appeared to be a new civiliation, which is actually their energy capture set up which uses the geo-thermal energy for their electricity and heating of their water.

The geo-thermal spring – impressive but mighty stinky

Good option I guess – why bury it if you don’t have to?

A warm shower in literally the middle of nowhere

Fun fact: all their hot water for their houses comes from a central spot. It’s heated, sent through the pipes right to the shower/hot water tap. No need for hot water systems! It’s also pumped underneath major roads so they don’t ice up. Clever!

It was freezing today, bit of rain + wind and 3 degrees, but we came across naturally warm bathing pools, similar to the well known “Blue Lagoon”, but these were natural whereas the Blue Lagoon is man-made. We hired everything, including bathers (that was weird, but they were clean) and braved the icy temperatures and plunged into the icy blue water. 38 degrees and beautiful!

Our accommodation for tonight is this incredibly cute, well thoughout new “tiny house” which faces an enormous lake and snow-capped mountains. It’s ridiculous how pretty this area is and this house is just perfect for it.

So well thought through! Tiny, but spacious

Looking through the 3rd window downstairs

A photo I stole from Air BnB showing how they look

October 5, 2015February 3, 2017

Iceland – Day 9

We didn’t have wifi last night, so this is a day late…

We only had a 1h39 drive from our fishing village to our new temporary home – so we took the opportunity to check out the fishing village further as well as take far too many stops and oggle the scenery on the way. It was designed as a bit of a rest day so we took advantage of it.

However, 5 minutes after Glen exclaimed he was keen for some off-the-beaten track adventure, Glen decided it’d be a good idea to try and find a driving track to the “pyramid mountain”. That involved driving through what looked like a bit of grass. That grass was basically floating in water and loose dirt, which quickly turned into mud and quicker yet, I had us bogged. Well off the main road, no-one around and I’m shitting myself. I got out of the car, had Soph get in the driver’s seat while I went to attempt to push it out. What I hadn’t tried before then was using the “Lock” features of the 4WD. With Soph’s steady foot, she was able to reverse us out of the bog as I thankfully looked on without having to push and praying to the local Gods that we were away!

Our destination was an organic farm B&B just near Egilsstaoir in east Iceland. It was a pretty awesome experience – we were in the middle of basically nowhere on a large working farm where there was no wifi, no phone reception for internet data at least, no music and no tv. It was the quietest place we’ve been to in who knows how long. It was also the smallest! Here’s some photos of what we saw on our way and at the B&B:

Our cabin in the fishing village, Djupivogur

Djupivogur – possibly the cutest town we’ve ever seen!

One of many waterfalls – you can get so close!

Our home for the night! That front room was the bedroom, kitchen & seating!

Old church next door – had a wander through the graveyard

Like everything here, it was left open and it was warm inside

October 3, 2015February 3, 2017

Iceland – day 8

2nd day on the Ring Road and it’s just wall-to-wall scenery. Today we did about 3.5hrs of driving from the south to the east. There’s lots to write about, but I’ll condense it to the highlights in photos:

Crashed DC-30 plane in the middle of nowhere

Swollen river – police, camera crews – the whole bit!

Friendly Icelandic horse – decent background!

Feed barn for sheep in winter (I think?) – super low entrance

There’s hundreds of waterfalls, but this was particularly pretty with a beautiful house in front

We hiked in to get a closer look at one of the glaciars. So impressive close up!

Glacial lake with bobbing icebergs before heading out to sea

Mountains and glacier reflected in the still water

Chasing the Northern Lights – 3/4 moon with a hint of green

We saw them! Northern Lights over snow capped mountains. Just magic!

More pronounced here. We purposely didn’t photograph the best one – we just watched and took it in.

The Northern Lights were an unexpected treat… Our accommodation is in the East of Iceland and in a small fishing village. Yesterday was our first day without much rain and lots of sunshine so with a clear sky, we ventured out. Lots of wishful thinking and “is that them?” and in the space of about 20 minutes, they revealed themselves. Just incredible!

It’s easy to get caught up in just going to places to take a photo of it and forget to actually take it in. Soph mentioned that yesterday and she’s right – it did feel like it became a bit of a photography contest. So we made a concerted effort to forget the camera as the lightshow presented itself and just take it in, be in the moment. The photos above are the after affects. Hopefully we’ll have lots more opportunity to take a photo of it in its full glory!

It’s probably the highlight of the trip so far – absolutely pumped we got to see them!!

October 2, 2015February 3, 2017

Reykjavik street art scene

Reykjavik has a very active street art scene, particularly around the downtown area. We had a great time hunting some down – some were in more prominent areas than others.

It will be interesting to see if this is continued to other parts of Iceland. Will keep an eye out!

The full album is here.

October 2, 2015February 3, 2017

Iceland – day 7

Our first day on the road!

After a leisurely morning of finishing our packing, having a buffet breakfast and taking photos of some of Reyjkavik’s very active street art scene, we grabbed our trusty steed (a brand new Suzuki Vitara) and hit the road!

Today was all about The Golden Circle – 4 landmarks that are often done in a (very long) day. Unfortunately, one of the biggest attractions, The Blue Lagoon, had major issues with the water pipes and as such, had a 4hr waiting time! Needless to say, we didn’t hang around and hope to do this at the end of our trip now instead.

We pushed on and drove to an important landmark for various reasons in Iceland – Thingvellir National Park. It’s the home of Iceland’s first parliament set up by the vikings in the 900s and it’s also the meeting place for the European and North American tectonic plates which are slowly separating.

Tectonic plates between Europe & North America

Next on our list was the home of the original geyser, Geyser! There’s a bunch of very active geysers with one going off every 10 minutes or so.

Geyser shooting hot water 15m into the air

The whole Golden Circle has so many vantage points for incredible scenery – Autumn was clearly an ideal time to come with the colour of the leaves and folliage.

A photo by the side of the road on the Gold Circle

Last on the list, but by no means least, was Gullfoss Waterfall. Absolutely spectacular waterfall with a massive drop and spilling tonnes of water every second. It’s impressive just how close you can get to the waterfalls without the enormous barricades we’re used to back home…

Tonight we’re staying at an AirBnB place in Vik, South Iceland. From our last Golden Circle stop, it was about a 2.5hr drive. We turned that into a lot longer drive as we saw some truly amazing scenery on the way. We saw a large waterfall from a distance so we stopped at that as the sun was setting…

And then not too much further down the road, we start to see some snow-capped mountains. Kept driving and we ask ourselves, “is that a glacier?”. Sure enough, a 5minute drive off the Ring Road and only a 10 minute walk we’re looking at Solheimajokull Glacier. It was around 7:15pm so light was fading quickly so it was a quick snap and back to the car unfortunately:

Our accommodation is fantastic. Our host is very nice & after a delicious pizza around the corner at the local restaurant, we collapse into a comfortable bed after another huge but incredibly satisfying day.