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Published: November 28th 2008
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.....The ice was all around :
It cracked and growled, and roared and howled,
Like noises in a swound! Not quite as dramatic as the Ancient Mariner's trip but still very impressive!
Today began with an early morning boat ride of the Jokulsarlon lagoon and definitely one of the highlights of the trip. I believe it was even worth losing the feeling in my feet and hands for the whole day to see the blue icebergs at close proximity.
Not exactly the monsters I was expecting but still very impressive to see. The lagoon is formed by chunks of ice melting off of the Breidamerkurjokull glacier
I promise these photos are just the tip of the iceberg (pardon the pun) - it's truly amazing the ridiculous number of photographs that you can take of exactly the same thing!
The boat itself was quite fun. Apparently they used to belong to the US marines and went straight from land to water - very cool! Even cooler (last pun I promise) was the 1000 year old ice we got to eat. I've no idea how they can honestly claim it is that old but still has to
be one of the more unusual things I have eaten.
Apparently the ice from this lagoon is very popular for drinks as, most importantly, it's blue! Apparently the biggest clients are Japanese businessmen who are prepared to pay truly ridiculous amounts of money simply to have blue ice cubes that make an impressively loud crack as they are put into drinks!
Each to their own but I can think of better things to do with the money personally. The ice melts slower than usual as the lagoon is made up of fresh and salt water - another reason it is good for drinks!
The lagoon is famous for staring in James Bond, Die Another Day - where they blocked off the river that runs out into the sea, and froze over the lagoon. However they did lose 6 Aston Martin DB9s into the lagoon when trying to make the scenes!
We spent the afternoon driving across the Almannaskard Pass - a journey which afforded a magnificent view of Vatnajokull, Europe’s largest glacier although it took forever to persuade our guide to let us off the coach for a photo stop!
On reaching the northeastern fjordic
coastline, we stopped inland for the night in the Egilsstadir area, close to Logurinn lake - reputedly home to a Loch Ness-type monster although he didn't feel like coming to say hello.
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