Iceland

Before I begin you may have noticed in the last blog I had named some of the photos 'Iceland' -they were in fact Geneva not Iceland I must have had Iceland on the brain! Here you will find out why...

On the 9th Nicola and I left for Iceland along with 8 others, we didn't arrive in Reykjavik (the capital pronounced reck-a-vick) until midnight and by the time we got to bed after getting the shuttle to our Hotel named Cabin Hotel it was around 3am. (it wasn't cabins, just named that... weird.)

We got up around 8am for a Buffet Breakfast in the Hotel and then headed off to get a bus to The Blue Lagoon -Thermal Pools. We missed the bus by 5 minutes but it was as if it was meant to be.. as we walked outside to get a taxi, directly opposite was Budget Car Rentals, we ended up with a 9 seater van who we named 'Magnus' meaning 'The Great' in Icelandic -and he sure did turn out to be great as we took him everwhere!

We spent the afternoon bathing in the beautiful Blue Lagoon and plastering our faces with mud masks every 15 minutes (they have loads of it as it's made from all the natural minerals in the ground and you just help yourself). Afterwards we showered in the lovely bathrooms that were laden with products and hairdryers etc. Aparantely for Icelandic people going to the Blue Lagoon is as common as popping down to the pub for a drink so they put alot of money into making it comfortable for the locals.

We headed back to our Hotel for a few drinks then to the Bistro down the road for a quick Dinner before setting off on 'The Northern Lights Tour'. We went for the tour bus option for fear that we might not know where to go in Magnus. We didn't see a sky full of colour but we did see a smear of yellow and lots of stars, it was absolutely beautiful!

It was so freezing that we couldn't wait to get back onto the bus after each of the two 20 minute stops. The temp was around
-5 degrees and they take you out to the most barron of places surrounded by snow so that you get a good view of The Northern Lights. As the tour guide said, there are no guarantees that you will see them and aparantely they hadn't had a great sighting since Sept because of the bad weather.

We got home to our hotel in the early hours of Saturday morning and as we walked inside it started to snow! So exciting for me as it's only the second time i've seen snow fall, the first time was for around 2 minutes at home in Whitemans Valley -does that count?

We were having a play outside the Hotel in the snow taking lots of photos when the man from Reception came out for a chat. He asked where we were from and once told he replied 'New Foundland?' when we corrected him he said 'New Zealand...? Isn't that on the other side of the world?' It was in that moment that I actually realised the extent of where we had travelled to..

Up at the crack of dawn again, filled up on Breakfast and jumped into Magnus and off we went on 'The Golden Circle Tour' you can do this tour by bus and it takes 8 hours but we decided to do our own version of it and we even managed to take a shortcut through an 'impassable route', at one point the snow was so thick on the road that a car behind us wanted us to go first so that we could test it out. Wasn't that kind of them!

The Scenery along the way was absolutely breathtaking. Seeing as the sun sets around 4.30pm (and it gets light around 10.30am) we got the most beautiful shots of the snow covered mountains and the sun ready to set. It really was a photographers dream. On the tour We stopped by some Geysers, and my favourite was the Waterfall named 'Gulfoss'. It was enormous but the wind chill coming off it was so cold I just couldn't stand it! I actually thought I had frostbite on my fingertips even though I had two pairs of gloves on!

From there we headed home and most had a snooze on the way then freshened up before drinking our bubbles that we bought duty free (the guide books recommend you buy alcohol duty free as Iceland is an expensive place, especially to drink out on the town) and then headed out for Dinner again. We didn't have any traditional icelandic food as that consisted of Whale or Dried Fish, my morals said no on the first one and tastebuds on the second. We did have some really delicious lamb though! (and did I mention the yummy choc covered raisins?)

Later that night we headed out to wreck havoc on Rjekovik and found some really cool bars and stayed out until the wee hours. Couldn't help noticing that all the people (particularly females) were so very stylish, they almost lookd futuristic, all very attractive with distinctive haircuts and many of our group pointed out their 'funny noses' hehe. The nightlife was really good and it seemed Saturday night turned the main street into a very busy place!

Up the next day feeling rather jaded, planned to hit the shops but they were closed until 11 and we had to be at the airport after lunch. On our way into the main street we drove past a frozen lake, it was absolutely enormous and completely frozen so we had to get out and have a bit of a run around.

We then went to a very minimalistic but striking looking Church named Hallgrimskirkja. Inside we looked at an Organ that had 5225 massive pipes on the wall. We got tickets up to the bell tower to get a good view of the City when to our extreme surprise whilst we were admiring the view and chatting away the bells started to ring. Hangover + loud noises = not so good.

We headed off to the airport and checked with the car hire place to see if we could drop Magnus there too (we'd arranged to drop him off where we picked him up from) and of course he pulled through again and we drove him all the way to the airport. It was a very sad goodbye as he'd served us so well and we'd had such an amazing 3 days seeing Iceland.

Our flight was delayed as they had to de-ice the wings before we took off in the snow, I have to mention our very dodgy landing in Heathrow, the Pilot hovered over the groud to the point that it was just frightening and Nicola's face said it all. I have to say flying has never bothered me at all until that point!

Forgetting the landing in London I really cannot rave enough about Reykjavik, the exquisite scenery, cleanliness, and crisp fresh air were so breathtaking, we didn't find the people overly friendly but even that and the freezing cold couldn't make me say a bad word about it. Iceland surely has to be one of the best places in the world to visit. (with the best Hot Chocolates too!)

I hope you like the photos (be prepared there are 3 pages worth!) and I expect to see lots of photos from the races and the sevens from those of you going in the next few weeks!

Until next time..

Olivia xoxo

More info on Iceland for those interested:

Iceland is 66 degrees north of the Equator.

In Summer they have 22 hours of sunshine but the highest recorded temp is 24 degrees.

Our flights and accommodation were a package deal for £211, drinks were very pricey (same price as a whole meal) as are all tourist attractions and bus transfers -thank god for Magnus!

City is small and easy to get around and as I said very clean and VERY modern just looked as though everything had been newly built.

Their National Symbol is the Puffin, remember 'Puffin Books?' that's them! and baby ones are called Pufflings, I was dieing to see a puffling but unfortunately we weren't in quite the right area!

The Blue Lagoon is a pool of seawater naturally heated by geothermal activity below the surface. The water contains a mixture of salts, silica and blue- green algae, which is said to cleanse and soften the skin and relax the body. The water varies in temp from 36-39 degrees and you have to be careful of hotspots which can be too close to boiling point for comfort! The Blue Lagoon also has two saunas, a Waterfall and a Steam Bath.

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