Iceland

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It's been a while since our last travel blog and a lot has changed. We've gotten older, Kim graduated university, we bought a house and most recently - we got married! Apart from a few short weekend breaks to Rome and Dublin our travels have been limited but we're hoping to change that now, starting with this short "mini-moon" in Iceland followed by 3 weeks Vietnam at the end of the year which we're very much looking forward to. One of the things we enjoyed about travelling was writing these blogs to tell everyone what we've been up to and hopefully help other travellers who may stumble upon our posts. We're combining all 4 days into one blog - apologies if it's a bit long! So we'll begin at Heathrow airport where we boarded our Iceland Air flight to Reykjavik. After taking our seats we soon realised that we were actually meant to be sat across the aisle from each other. I politely asked the air stewardess if the flight was full and if there were any seats where we could sit together as we'd just gotten married and were on our honeymoon. Sadly she wasn't sure and walked off to usher more people into the plane. A few minutes later she came back and asked us to follow her through the plane to some spare seats and in true movie fashion we were upgraded to first class! The extra leg room, large seats and complementary water definitely made the 2.5 hours to Iceland much more enjoyable.



Arriving in a cold, wet, Keflavik airport we eventually found our car rental guy wandering around arrivals with a rather small sign meant for us and picked up our tiny Hyundai which we would spend quite a lot of time in over the next few days. Thankfully there was very little traffic on the drive into Reykjavik as I got used to driving on the right and we stumbled across our hotel almost by chance and checked in to our room which had a great view out across the marina.



Day 1 - Whale Watching & Reykjavik



We had a bit of a lie in on Tuesday morning before heading out for breakfast and discovering our first fact about Iceland - it's expensive. REALLY expensive. Particularly eating out in Reykjavik. But hey, we were only here for a few days so we enjoyed our expensive breakfast before heading back to the marina and booking a tour to go whale watching. There are several companies along the harbour but all offer the same price (8500kr) so we went for the one that had the biggest boat! Upon booking we decided to book a double tour to see the northern lights and had a few hours to kill so spent it wandering around Reykjavik. The city itself isn't very big, more of a town with a population of about 200,00 that is about 75% of the whole of Iceland! It felt quite similar to being in New Zealand (not a bad thing) and we walked around some of the centre before heading back to the harbour to head out on our boat, "Andrea". The tour was around 3 hours out in the bay during which time we saw precisely 0 whales. Disappointing but as our guide rightly pointed out, the whales do what they want! It's not sea world where they spend a miserable life in captivity being tormented into performing for a baying crowd. On the plus side as we didn't see any whales we got a free ticket for another trip that we were able to use for our northern lights trip and get some money back!



We walked up to the modern Reykjavik cathedral which overlooks the city. Inside is a hugely impressive pipe organ which is one of the largest in the world and does indeed contain a lot of pipes! We took the lift up the tower to the observation deck which offers spectacular 360 degree views of the whole of the city. We also managed to time it so that we arrived at the top bang on 5 o'clock and were almost deafened by the bells ringing out only a few metres above us. That night we had arranged to meet up with our friend Sam who we met travelling in New Zealand and haven't seen for almost 8 years! She happened to be travelling Iceland with her friend the same time as we were there so it was a dinner date that could not be missed. After some tasty (but expensive) food we headed to a bar, (where else but The English Pub) for a few drinks. Well, 1 drink as drinking in Iceland is expensive. We ended up chatting to someone who happened to be a 4x4 tour guide who gave us a few tips of where to go that might not be in the guide book. We eventually said our goodbyes and had our next day around the golden circle planned with a few extra stops.



Day 2 - The Golden Circle




We set off fairly early and made good time Pingvellir national park and our first stop with spectacular view of Pingvallavatan lake. A short drive up the road led us to the national park visitor and information centre where we used our previous nights info from our friendly tour guide in the bar to find a rift valley where The Hound and Arya are surrounded by archers. We walked along the top before taking some time to explore the valley where accessible and take in the spectacular views with no-one else around. After grabbing a quick coffee in the visitor centre we drove on to another visitor and information centre where you can walk between the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates. As spectacular as this was, there were a lot of people around and the experience was slightly tarnished by some kids who insisted on having rap music blaring from some speakers in their bag. We did our best to hang back and avoid them, took our photos and drove on to Geysir.



As the name suggests, Geysir is a large active geyser, with a few other geysers sprinkled around for good measure. Geysir is the largest of them all and you're unlikely to see anything happen so we made do with it's smaller friend Strokkur. That erupts every few minutes and we enjoyed watching the tourists standing downwind of the water spurt when it went off who got their SLR cameras covered in water. While nowhere near as impressive as Rotorua in New Zealand, it was definitely worth a visit. The most impressive sight of the day definitely went to our next stop at Gulfoss, or Golden Falls. It's one of the most popular tourist destinations in the whole country and it's easy to see why. You can walk really close to the point where the falls start if you don't mind getting wet. Being so close to such a massive volume of water roaring over the falls is really quite breathtaking.



Realising we were getting low on car snacks we stopped in the "town" of Borg after appreciating the Star Trek related name. I say "town" as in England it would be a village, if that! After buying some snacks in the tiny shop while being served by an Icelandic Tottenham supporting man complete with tattoo (Joe was impressed) we visited Kerio, an extinct volcanic crater that has now been filled with water and use for fish farming. We must have timed it right as there we only saw 2 other people in the time we were there and no coaches. The crystal-blue water in the crater gave a beautiful view and the walk around worked up an appetite. The thing about Iceland is there are so many amazing views you're spoilt for choice on where to stop and admire! We settled on a picnic spot overlooking Ingolfsfjall and decided to stay in the warm car to eat.



Entering the final stages of our journey we stopped off at Kerio, a dormant volcanic crater which offered some nice views and a good walk around the top edge and a nice seat overlooking the now water-filled crater. The crater was intentionally filled with water and is now used for fish farming. Worth a stop off as we only saw 2 other people while we were there but you do have to pay a small park entrance fee. It was a couple of hours back to Reykjavik from here and the last point we had on our agenda was a lava tube that the tour guide told us about the night before. I'm not quite sure what we were expecting to see but we did think there would be a decent signpost, so we ended up driving right past it and only realising 20 minutes later! We did a u-turn and eventually pulled up in a gravel car park which looked in the middle of nowhere. However a short walk from the car we stumbled across the lava tube entrance which is flat with the ground so not visible from the road. We explored park of the cave network for a good 40 minutes without anyone else around! It was pretty eerie inside as the rain hammered down the water flowed through the rocks. We headed back into Reykjavik and grabbed some well needed food before heading out on our northern lights boat trip.



Following the previous days disappointment with the whale watching trip we didn't have too high expectations for our northern lights boat trip. And with our 6am start on the horizon the next day we hoped not to be out too late! So we boarded the boat at 10am, fully wrapped up in multiple layers (after freezing on the whale watching boat) only to be given some insulated, emergency floatation suits! So after taking off several of the layers and finding a seat we headed out to the bay with our tour guide singing various Icelandic songs to us. We went out to the back deck and were told to look at the very small whisp in the sky. If we didn't know what we were out looking for you would assume it was a cloud trail but it turned out to be the start of natures spectacular light show. Gradually it started to get bigger, slowly move until almost as if someone flicked a switch, we were treated to swirls, flashes of flight and colour (mostly greens & blues) much to the delight of everyone on the boat. According to our guide it was one of the best they've seen for a while so after striking out on the whale watching trip we got lucky! It's hard to describe how you feel looking up and seeing this going on to someone who hasn't seen it. But all I can say is you feel privileged and completely in the moment getting to watch this spectacular, natural light display. All of this happened fairly early for the northern lights by all accounts and we were back in the hotel about 12.30am to get as much sleep as we could before our early start.



Day 3 - Jökulsárlón Glacial Lagoon (and a VERY long drive)



We were told the Jokulsarlon lagoon was a must-see on this trip. Ideally we would have made the drive over 2 days to take in all the sights along the way but we'll leave that for another trip! We jumped in our little Hyundai and set off on a super long drive which was to take just over 5 hours there and 5 hours back (not including stops!). It was a pretty straightforward drive, once out of Reykjavik carry on the "1" which goes around the whole island until we reached our destination. We did manage to have a minor detour coming out of Reykjavik and almost ended up the road to Pingvellir. We had a couple of pit stops on the way to stretch our legs and decided to do all of our photo stops on the way back. The scenery was absolutely spectacular, passing coastline, old lava fields, volcanoes and glaciers. We were disappointed we only had 1 day to take it all in rather than take our time and explore a bit more. After just over 4 hours driving we approached a sign for the national park. We pulled up in the visitor car park hoping that our epic journey was at an end, although slightly puzzled as we could see a glacier but no lake. Kim went inside the visitors centre to ask and was pointed out that we hadn't quite got there yet. "Oh so it's just around the corner" Kim said, and the guy at the counter replied "Well, around Icelands largest volcano, yes...".



So, back on the road again and another 45 minutes we FINALLY got there. And it was definitely worth the drive. We booked on a boat trip out in the lake and it's not until you're out there you can really comprehend the sheer size of the lake as it covers nearly 7 square miles and 250 metres deep at it's deepest point. The lake only actually started forming 60 years ago when the glacier started retreating and is full of huge icebergs. We didn't get to see any wildlife apart from a few seagulls but did get to taste a bit of ice from on of the icebergs. It tasted like, well, ice. Because of the connection with the sea the water in the lake is 50% fresh water and 50% salt water so I wouldn't advise drinking it. The car chase scene on the Ice from Die Another Day was filmed on the lake after an artificial damn was built to stop the flow between the sea allowing the lake to freeze over. After our boat trip we took advantage of the free wifi in the visitor centre (it's the middle of nowhere and they have free WIFI!! Free WIFI is everywhere in Iceland) and headed down to the black sand beach for a picnic and started our journey home.



The weather on the way back wasn't as good so we missed out on a few photo ops but did take the time to explore a couple of waterfalls at Skogafoss (Kim decided against the trek up to the top but I thought the view was worth it) and Seljalandsfoss (This time Kim decided against the path that took you behind the waterfall but I thought getting wet was worth it!). We finally arrived back in Reykjavik at around 9pm after driving through some torrential rain and got some well needed sleep!



Day 4 - The Blue Lagoon / Home Time



So this was the last day we could wake up and look out from our balcony across the Reykjavik harbour view we'd become accustomed to. After another expensive breakfast we checked out and took our little Hyundai on one last drive to the Blue Lagoon. It's advertised as the ultimate tourist trap but definitely worth the entrance fee. The blue lagoon isn't a natural hot spring but the warm water is the by run off from the nearby geothermal power station. It's not far from the airport either so was an easy stop off for our last day. We decided to upgrade our visitor passes to include robe & towel hire, a free drink from the bar and a special mud pack. To be honest it wasn't really worth the price increase (standard entry is about £35 each, we paid about £50 each) but if you wanted a drink from the bar it would probably be another £10 anyway. We managed to time our arrival just as coachloads of rather obese American tourists arrived which was a great sight in the changing rooms. The pool was really nice though and we lazed around for about an hour before deciding to brave the changing rooms and head off to the airport.



Sadly we didn't have our first class upgrade on the flight home but it was a bit different to arrive back in England to be greeted by warm weather! Our 4 days in Iceland really wasn't enough to explore everything but I highly recommend it to anyone. We'll definitely be going back but hiring a camper van to explore the whole island. But now the countdown to Vietnam begins....!!!

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