Blogs from North, Iceland, Europe

Today is the day of the whales. The wind has dropped and the water looks a lot calmer than yesterday. I go for a walk and find the supermarket. Go in to get some orange juice and immediately hit by bakery smells that are enough to get me buying croissants for breakfast. Yummo. Get organized, dump our waste waters (yes even the toilet has been used as an emergency). No issues and we have been given the go ahead to use the toilet if needed. Do a tour of Davlik which takes all of 10 minutes then head back to Hauganes. On the way we get a call from Jessica with the last minutes of the Melbourne/Brisbane game. Melbourne are 5 points down, having been over 20 points down for quite a while. This is a ... read more

Down day today. Decided after all the driving since we have picked up the Motorhome that we needed a quieter day. Slept in till around 0900 then did the usual of shower, breakfast and clean up. Facilities at this camp site are excellent. Showers and toilets are shared so a bit compromising when you come out of the toilet and have a lovely young girl applying make up beside you while washing your hands…. Anyway, showers hot and strong (geo thermal heating everywhere) and we were lucky with no waiting involved. So hot if you aren’t careful you can scald yourself. Packed up and decided to do the lake (Myvatn - found out vatn means lake so maybe I am double dipping). Stopped at a farm to plate place and booked dinner then did stops here ... read more

Welcome to Seydisfjordur. It is pronounced just the way it looks. This is our last stop in Iceland, but it is also a "tender port". For that reason we did not book an excursion, but David did go ashore later in the day. But that is getting ahead of the story. Let's start with last night. As the ship was sailing out of Akureyi, we were in the dining room watching the scenery while having dinner. One of our tablemates pointed out a waterfall flowing into the fjord, but it was creating steam when it hit the water. They had learned during their excursion that twice a stream of hot water was encountered while digging a tunnel for the road. The water was piped out onto the ground and it ran down the hill and into ... read more

FRI, 30 SEP 2022 – Day 5: Lake Myvatn/Akureyri - Set off for magnificent Dettifoss, Europe's mightiest waterfall at 100-metres wide and with a 45-metre drop into the craggy shores of Jokulsargljufur canyon below. It’s so powerful that it’s vibrations can be felt underfoot. Continue to volcanic Lake Myvatn. Next is Namaskard, where steam rises from the sulphuric terrain and it’s hard to believe you’re on Earth and not Mars. Take a walk around the lava stacks and caves of Dimmuborgir and then observe the massive pseudo craters of Skutustadir. Continue to the crescent shaped Godafoss waterfall, where legend says a lawmaker priest threw the idols of the Norse gods when Christianity became Iceland’s official religion in AD1000. Travel on to Akureyri and settle into your accommodation for the evening. Total driving distance - approximately 250 ... read more

Dear All Greetings once more from my Nordic travels this summer. I am very much settled back in the UK now, but I am continuing to publish my blog entries after an epic summer adventure in northern lands. This entry relates my further adventures in northern Iceland, after having already seen a blue whale, mind-blowing rock formations and volcanic lunar-like landscapes. It was pretty amazing so far, and it continued to be. I was particularly excited waking up this Tuesday morning in the middle of August, as my driving was to take me to the city of Akureyri (pronounced "Aku-weh-ree"), Iceland's second largest. It had been a while since I was in a large urban area - Torshavn back on the Faroe Islands was probably my most recent sizeable one a week earlier, but at 13,000 ... read more