Mar 19: Iceland (5 - 11)

Tuesday 5 March 

Up at 3.30 to get to Manchester for an early flight to Keflavik.

Arrived with plenty of time but had a half hour hold up waiting for Mike's bag to be rechecked.  Nothing abnormal found - seems there was a fault on the scanner.  A lot of unhappy people!! 

Picked up the car and set off to Reykjavik.  Beautiful sunshine but very cold!

Lovely church but prettier on the outside I think - seems quite stark on the inside but I suppose it's because  it is very modern. 

No organ music this time. Shame.

The birds were skating on the lake  - they did have patches where the ice had been broken so they could swim. 

Change of weather when we went about 30 miles along the coast to find our digs. Dark skies and snow flurries. We sorted out a bit and then set off to look for the geothermal park nearby.  

Very near but was closed. Settled for a short walk round to peer through the wire netting to see how they were harnessing the power of the fumeroles..

The pizza restaurant nearby even had its own outdoor geyysir with fumeroles which was used in the summer to cook pizzas on. Just sitting there outside the 'closed for winter' restaurant with the rocks sizzling and steaming away on their own. Wouldn't be allowed in the UK I'm sure!

Wednesday  6 March

Found my fitbit today - thought it had been left at the first accommodation under the bed or somewhere! Our first lost and found!!

Onwards along the coast but with a detour up to see the Kerid crater, the geysers and Gulfoss waterfall. 

Sunshine at the crater. 

Some sunshine at the geysers. 

But fleeingly cold and windy at Gulfoss so we didn't linger long! Too cold to have gloves off for more than few seconds and hard to take pics with the camera bring buffeted so much!

So onwards to the oldest natural geothermal pool in Iceland for a relaxing dip. 

And a chance afterwards to wander round the thermal geysirs which were hearing the pool.

We walked up the road in the evening to get away from the lights and found some aurora!

Only went a few hundred yards towards the river. Had to then revisit in the morning to look for (and find!) Mike's tripod bag which had blown away in the dark. Second lost and found.

We showed the pics to a group of Spaniards in the hotel. They were very excited and came out with us to have a look. Not very visible by eye but they were most impressed when Mike showed them the results of his photos. 

Thursday 7 March


Waterfall near the hotel. 

We got there and Mike said he felt a bit cold - turned out he'd left one of his fleece layers on the back of a chair in the hotel. Luckily we weren't too far away so we went back for it.

Another lost and found.

One of the oldest sites of worship in Iceland. 

Turf roofed houses. 

Waterfalls.

Plane wrecks that we didn't have time to walk to. 

The black sands at Vik. 

Then a careful drive to our next stop on snowy roads taking care not to skid off as had happened to some other cars. 

More aurora in the evening - just by the hotel.

Beautiful aurora - not really visible with the naked eye other than knowing there was ''something' there.

Turned out to be a late night as we had to go back out with torches to look for my glasses which I'd dropped in the snow. Found them intact! Losing count of lost and found now - but at least we're finding them!!

Friday 8 March

We were in a tiny room but what a view to wake up to!

There was a waterfall on site so we went to have a look - also a turf roofed house which looked as though it was being used as a barn 

  

Then we went to look at some basalt columns - said to look like a church floor. Weren't sure if we'd even see them with the snow but we found them!

Onwards to look at the dwarf crags where some trolls were supposed to have lived. Lovely place in the sunshine but a howling wind!! Oh and another waterfall..

Another waterfall. Very pretty this one!

I have seen three snowmen on this trip.  I have never seen a snowman in Iceland before!  But we have never been along this south east coast so maybe it's just down to wetter snow here.

Close up to a glacier - and some bridge girders which were ripped out by glacial flood water and debris. Just shows how strong nature can be. 

Then on to the Diamond lagoon - so called because the lumps of glacial ice shines like diamonds with the sun on them. Unfortunately we only saw them through the sleety, windy, grey gloom. Still very impressive though!

We stopped on the other side of the bridge to look at the blue ice in the glacier lagoon. Huge icebergs in the bay with loads of seals bobbing up around them. Again the colour wasn't very good because the weather was so gloomy. Still very impressive to see though.

It was so cold that we had fish and chips in the car from a van in the car park. Unfortunately the man selling langoustine bisque had packed up and gone home. But the fish was lovely - huge chunky pieces and very fresh!

Total white out at times when driving - needed all Mike's concentration. Then there was the snow on the road and more snow going horizontally across the road and the fierce winds buffeting us. Quite a journey! 

Our accommodation for the night was at a hostel in the middle of nowhere. The room was tiny so I asked if we could change so the lady gave us a bigger room with no extra charge! Lots of sky! But there was no aurora 🙄  

Saturday 9 March

Back to the glacier and diamond lagoons today to see if we could find some sunshine! And the answer was yes!

I sat on an iceberg but was careful not to be too near the sea.

I still managed to nearly flil my snow boots with water though as a huge wave came further up the beach than I expected! Luckily it just wet my over trousers - can't even imagine how cold that water would have been!!

The blue of the icebergs was much more impressive in the sunshine.

It was so lovely that we decided to have a belated breakfast in the car watching the waves and icebergs. So out came the trusty flask! 

As we arrived early in Hofn we had a short walk round the harbour whilst we were waiting for our accommodation to be made ready. There was a beautiful mountain range in the distance (something very famous - probably a glacier or a volcano) - which was lovely in the sunshine. Within minutes it disappeared and we finished our walk with little visibility and lots of sleet and snow!

As we walked there was a trail for children with information boards about the planets. This one really tickled us. 

Who knew that Betty Crocker was so famous in Iceland?! 

Eventually we found somewhere to shelter from the weather!

Sunday 10 March

A drive along the coast which literally hugs the coastline past loads of fjords and inlets. No short cuts straight across!

Five minutes after setting off we hit 'weather'! And that was basically how it stayed for the entire 165km journey with varying degrees of rain, sleet, snow, mist and fog. And we saw only about 20 or 30 cars during the whole trip.  More careful driving by Mike.

There were several herds of reindeer en route.

We found a small town just off the main road which had a cafe open - the only sign of an eatery since we'd left Hofn - so we decided to stop for brunch. It was a nice break and we even had a sort of English breakfast!

As we left Mike couldn't find his gloves. They were lost. He searched the car. He went back to the cafe. Nothing. We searched the car again but still nothing. It was a mystery. We concluded that one of the large tour party who had come in after us and then left before us had picked them up.

So, resigned to having no thin driving gloves until we reached civilisation with a shop we set off. 

Then I reached into my rucksack for something - and pulled out a neatly folded pair of gloves which I'd obviously thought were mine. 

Mystery solved! Onwards we went into more weather..

We arrived at our hotel. It was a self check in so we found our room and explored - to find out that we had it to ourselves!

It was too windy and sleety to go out so we googled opening hours for what was round about. There was a small craft brewery and bar over the road which we'd been looking forward to trying. Closed on Sundays. 

There was a restaurant in a hotel - 2km away and we didn't want to move the car again.

There was a small supermarket. Closed on Sundays.

And that was it. So we dined on cup a soup and mug noodles. With wine. No problem.

And we waited - but another no show on the northern lights  front. 

Quite annoying  really as we'd had great locations the last two nights - nice big slope just outside the door last night and a small balcony at this hotel - which meant we didn't even have to go outside.  But no aurora!! 

Monday 11 March

Travelling further up the fjords today. 

There is only one main road round the island and on the east it follows the contours of the coast as it can't go anywhere else! At times it squeezes literally between mountain and sea. Quite spectacular but quite hairy at times with the snowy weather. 

A woman in the cafe yesterday told us that it's unusual for there to be so much snow at this time of year. There's certainly more than we were expecting in March!

Woke up to sunshine so we decided to have a short walk to see what we had missed the previous day.  By the time we went out, ten minutes later, the weather had started to change again 🙄

On with the journey.  We had a bit better weather today for most of the time so we were able to enjoy the view. Still very changeable though and a bit hairy in parts!

They are serious about their snow ploughs round here but having gone past snow a couple of feet deep they need to be!

We stopped for a coffee but didn't linger for very long. Although there was plenty of sunshine there was still a fair breeze which, coupled with the damp and wet air made it bitterly cold and quite unpleasant to sit out in. It did cool the coffee quickly though. But we admired the view from inside the car!

As we'd only had a shortish journey today we decided to drive back to the coast (obviously not had enough of driving along by the sea!) to Seydisfjordur to look at the little blue church and the rainbow path which had featured in the film 'The secret life of Walter Mitty'.

Our first stop en route was to look at a waterfall (for a change!). Called Gufufoss it was a short walk from the car park. Quite tricky to get to as the snow and ice were melting a bit in the sun and it was very slippy.

We weren't even sure if we'd found it but there was definitely a waterfall there - a very frozen one!

It was said that a troll lived in the cave at the back of it and a tunnel linked it to another waterfall of the same name down the valley. This was the other waterfall - also very frozen.

We went up through the mountains into the sunshine and then back down to the coast to look for the church.

A charming looking place with postcard pretty little houses painted in lovely pastel colours.  We found the rainbow path and followed it to the little blue painted church. Very pretty. But closed - as was the rest of the village/town.

So without even a coffee we made our way back over the mountain. 

A search for food revealed that once again most places were closed. But we did find one place open so we ate in an American diner... in Iceland...

We checked the aurora forecast and the chances were high - but the clouds were low and it was snowing lightly. So we were thwarted again. 

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