Iceland In a desperate attempt to not go to Canada this year we decided to book somewhere that we fly over on the way to Canada that also has weather and scenery that are more than a little reminiscent of Canada. Perhaps we should have just gone to Canada? Read on and find out...
Leaving Heathrow Sunday - It was a lovely sunny day when we left Heathrow...
Arriving in Iceland ...and it was cloudy, cold and generally pretty grey when we arrived in Iceland three hours later.
Brrr! We picked up our hire car from the airport (a quick and relatively painless process - well done Hertz) and headed off on the 108 mile drive into the Icelandic wilderness to our first hotel at Husafell.It was pretty much dark by the time we left the airport so there was no opportunity for any photos of the scenery on the way. But what we did notice was that the car's external temperature gauge was soon showing temperatures into the minus teens (the lowest we saw was -17C). This was unexpected as the forecasts has indicated nothing below about -8C, even overnight.
Hotel Husafell A couple of hours later we arrived at our hotel. Our room was sufficiently spacious and comfortable.As it was now after 7pm we thought we'd be as well to head straight into the hotel's restaurant for dinner, where we got our first shock of the week. The bottle of beer in the photo (which, to be fair, was very nice) cost about £12. Dinner (two main courses, two desserts and one bottle of beer each) cost £150. This was going to be a challenging week.Time for bed and to have a think about what we'd let ourselves in for.
Hotel Husafell Monday - After breakfast it was still looking pretty dark outside so I went out to see if I could get any photos of stars. However, as is often the case in the pre-dawn, even though the sky looks dark, in the photos it comes out a deep blue with few/no stars. Doh! It was a nice photo of the hotel though. Still around -15C out. Brrr.
Art As there were few photo opportunities going on outside (and it was really cold outside), I thought I'd take a couple of photos inside. Here's some sculptures (?) in the hotel's reception.
Nook A comfy looking corner. Unfortunately, being glass on two sides and right by the door to the outside world on the third side, this was also a bit of a chilly spot.
Room View This was the view from our room as we were getting readly to head out, just before 10am. Although the sky was completely clear, there was still no sign of the sun.
Hraunfossar Here's our car (the one one the right sadly) in the car park at Hraunfossar, parked next to a proper Icelandic SUV. Wow!Still, our car was kitted out with "ice pro" studded tyres, which were well suited to the icy roads we'd mainly been driving on so far. Although they were rather noisy on ice-free tarmac.
Hraunfossar Judith at Hraunfossar.
Hraunfossar Judith on a bridge (although it's not obvious it's a bridge as I've not taken the photo at a very good angle.
Hraunfossar Unlike a "normal" waterfall, where a river changes height suddenly, at Hraunfossar the waterfalls are caused by water draining into a river off a lava plain.
View The roads in Iceland are, on the whole, very good. They're also very straight and pretty flat, so there's not much use for the cornering abilities of sports cars here.This photo was taken at midday and despite the fact that there wasn't a cloud in the sky, it was the first time that the sun had shone on us today.
Midday Looking in the other direction to the last photo, you can just see the sun peeking over the horizon.
Grabrok Crater About 45 mins later we arrived at the Grabok Crater, where there was a walk up to and around the rim of the crater. The first hundred yards of the path were rather steep and snowy/icy so Judith decided to stay in the car and read her book.With a pair of ice walkers on my boots I made swift progress up the snowy/icy bit, but was momentarily thwarted when the ropes marking the edges of the trail disappeared under the snow.
Grabrok Crater The view of the crater from the rim.
Grabrok Crater The view looking north from the rim of the crater.
Sunset This was taken at 2:20pm. We were still heading north, trying to make it as far as the north coast (or at least the end of an inlet on the north coast).
Bordeyri Half an hour later we arrived at the tiny village of Bordeyri on the north coast, where we found this ancient and interesting looking tractor, which, judging by its back wheels, looks like it was intended for snow use.
Bordeyri 2:55pm. Looking to the south, the sun had now disappeared behind the nearby hills.Shortly after taking this photo I broke my personal best for the most expensive fuel I'd ever put in a car. It was £1.53-a-litre for super-unleaded on the peage in France on my way to Switzerland in September. This regular unleaded fuel was about £1.65-a-litre! I didn't see super-unleaded for sale anywhere in Iceland.
Sunset 4:10pm. One perk of the short days it that you get really, really long sunsets. Well over an hour after I took the previous photo we were still being treated to a colourful sunset sky.
Sunset We couldn't decide if we liked this photo or the previous photo best, so I've included them both.
Moonrise As the scenery changed from hills to plains to hills, the moon kept appearing and disappearing. Then I had an opportunity to pull into a side road and get this photo of the moon just cresting a rocky outcrop in the distance.
Beer Back at the hotel and it was time to muster our courage and pay for another beer and dinner. A couple at the table next to us came in to the restaurant, looked at the menu, had an animated discussion and then ordered a starter salad each with a glass of water to drink. I know how they felt.Starter and a main course each with a bottle of beer today. £150.
Light One of the interesting lights on the ceiling of the restaurant.
BONUS!!! The hotel offers an aurora alert service. Dial 555 before you go to bed and they'll give you a walk up call if the aurora comes out. We'd checked the aurora forecast and it was level 2 of 9, i.e. very low chance. And yet at 1:45am our phone rang. So we quickly got dressed and legged it outside to be greeted by this amazing view.
Aurora The lights were moving all the time so we stood and watched them in the freezing cold (still about -15C) for about 45 minutes.
Aurora Eventually, even though the aurora was showing no sign of letting up, the cold forced us back indoors. What an amazing and unexpected treat.
Restaurant Tuesday - I took the opportunity of no-one else being up for breakfast to snap a photo of the restaurant, which is somehow looking remarkably un-atmospheric. Very odd.
Snow Coach This snow coach was parked near the hotel. They use it, and other vehicles like it, for trips onto the nearby Langjokull Glacier. Fortunately we'd done that in a monster truck a few years ago when we were here on a cruise, so we didn't need to go again.
Reykholt The church at Reykholt.
Glanni Waterfall Yesterday we'd managed to miss the Glanni waterfall on our way north and it was too dark to make the effort to walk to it by the time we were on our way back, so we thought we'd pop in today. Here's Judith looking like she can't wait to get started.
Glanni Waterfall The waterfall isn't that awrsome (by Iceland standards - in the UK it would likely be the best waterfall in the country by miles) so it was lucky that it was literally a five minute walk from the car park.
Glanni Waterfall As it hadn't taken long to get to the waterfall, we continued walking for another ten minutes or so until the trail ended at this pretty spot.
Hvita Bridge A while later we came across the Hvita Bridge. Built in 1928, the Hvita Bridge was the main bridge over the Hvita river until the Borgarfjordur Bridge near Borgarnes was built in 1979.
Hvita Bridge It's not very wide considering it was their main bridge for 51 years!
Stedji Brewery We popped in to the nearby Stedji Brewery to see if they were selling their beer any cheaper than the £12 a bottle our hotel was charging. However, despite the fact that they had a board out saying they were open, we nearly got the car stuck in a foot of snow in their car park before realising that this wasn't true. Tsk.
Another Brewery So we drove to another nearby brewery (I can't remember what this one was called), but it too was closed with a sign on the door saying they would open if you'd pre-booked a visit with at least fifteen people. Tsk again.
Hotel So we drove back to the hotel, dropped the car off and went for a walk.The big building is the hotel. The smaller building in the foreground is their entrance to their swimming pools and hot tubs. We did pop in there for a while on Monday evening when it was still really cold out, but it was distressing having to brush the ice out of your hair every couple of minutes.
Judith Judith out and about near the hotel.
Hotel View This small lake feeds a tiny (like the side of a shed) hydro electric power station that I assume powers some of the nearby buildings.
Beer Splashing out today, we had a pre-dinner beer AND shelled out for the fixed price five course dinner menu, which was about £90 each plus drinks. Well it was our last night in Husafell, so we thought we'd let our hair down a bit.
Misty Wednesday - We were relocating to a new hotel and the weather had taken a turn for the worse. It was "only" about -8C out, but visibility was down to a couple of hundred meters. With the snow on the ground, it was a lot like driving along inside a ping pong ball.
Hraunfossar We popped back in to Hraunfossar as a) we had to drive past it anyway, and b) we were interested to see if it was different in the reduced visibility.
Hraunfossar Unexpectedly, it wasn't much different. However, I did get the chance to re-take the photo of Judith on the bridge that I fluffed on Monday.
Hraunfossar Despite the similarity to Monday's visit, Judith still looks quite pleased with progress.
Highway 1 View We drove all the way down highway 50 to where it meets highway 1 on the coast, where there was a bit of a beach and this very nice view.
Pier Rather than pay a tenner to drive back through the tunnel under the Hvalfjordur, we decided to drive arounf the inlet instead. This pier that we passed made for an interesting photo opportunity.
Hvalfjordur View There were some nice views too. This was taken from pretty much the same spot as the previous photo.
Highway 48 "short-cut" Rather than drive all the way around the inlet back to highway 1, we turned south onto highway 48. After a few miles we passed this sign indicating that the tarmac was ending and we were driving onto a gravel road. Not that you could tell in the snow/ice.
"Sunset" After a while the sun dipped behind the nearby hills, creating a lovely looking "sunset". At 1:25pm.
Thingvellir After a while we arrived at Thingvellir. In Icelandic it looks like it's spelled Pingvellir, but the "P" is an Icelandic character and not actually a "P" So the anglicised version is apparently Thingvellir.This photo was actually taken in their car park.
Thingvellir Nice sort-of-sunset view. At 2pm.
Thingvellir Another nice sort-of-sunset view. Again, I couldn't choose between them so they're both in.
Continental Divide Iceland is the only place where the Mid-Altantic Rift is above sea level. That's the join between the North American tectonic plate (on the left) and the Eurasian tectonic plate (on the right). And at Thingvellir you can walk down the gap between the two! Although I'm not sure why the gap isn't full of lava.There were a very lot more people at Thingvellir than my carefully captured photo might lead you to believe there were.
Thingvellir Judith admiring the view.
Ljosafossstod Hydro Electric Power Station That's spelled correctly. The 's' appears three times in a row!Having left Thingvellir we continued on to the Ljosafossstod Hydro Electric Power Station, where they have an excellent and free exhibition (with free coffee and biscuits!), which made it all the more impressive that we were the only people there. I got the feeling the lady running the place hadn't spoken to anyone for a while, which was a shame because it was very good. And free.
Ljosafossstod Hydro Electric Power Station Judith on a turbine thing. Because the place is very interactive you can make the turbine spin by turning some valve things.
Ljosafossstod Hydro Electric Power Station Possibly the most entertaining and descriptive representation I've ever seen of the relationship between voltage, current and resistance.
Frost and Fire After leaving the excellent Ljosafossstod Hydro Electric Power Station, we continued on our way to our hotel, which you can see in the photo. Well the reception area anyway. The "smoke" in the foreground is from a geothermal vent right in their car park that they use to cook some of the dished on their restaurant's menu.
Olverk Brewery So we had a look at the menu in the hotel's restaurant, realised it was as hilariously expensive as our previous hotel and headed out into Hveragerdi to look for some more sensibly priced dinner.On what passes for the Hveragerdi high street (I think) is the Olverk "Pizza and Brewery", which sells pizza for a very reasonable (by Icelandic standards) £25 or so and "pints" (actually 400ml, so slightly less than a pint) for a mere £7.50 or so. Compared to what we'd become used to, it almost felt like they were giving it away.This is a photo of the Olverk Porter, which was my favourite of their beers that I tried.
Olverk Brewery A cartoon on the wall of the brewery.
Greenhouse Walking back to the hotel we passed many of these greenhouses. Because energy is so cheap and plentiful in Iceland they can afford to light and heat greenhouses year round to grow pretty much anything they fancy. Which makes it all the more annoying how much they charge for food.
Hydrant A very tall fire hydrant. This was much taller than almost all of the other ones that we saw.
Skogafoss Thursday - It rained for almost all of the sixty or so mile drive to Skogafoss, with poor visibility thrown in for good measure. But impressively the rain stopped just before we got to Skogafoss.The last time we were here there were only a couple of other tourists having a look at the waterfall. Today there were a couple of hundred, with more coaches and 4x4 tours arriving every couple of minutes. I'm sure this is wonderful for the Icelandic economy, but it doesn't make for a very rewarding tourist experience.
Skogafoss This is actually the same picture as the last one, just with the edges cropped off to focus on the most interesting bits.
Skogafoss Viewing Platform In the top right of my first Skogafoss picture you can just see a viewing platform. This photo is taken from there. There's a staircase up to the viewing platform now. The last time I was here there was just a muddy track to the top and at the top you stood on the edge of the waterfall and hoped you didn't fall in/off. Ah, the good old days.
Kirkjufjara Beach Almost immediately after leaving Skogafoss we drove back into the rain, which continued all the way to Kirkjufjara Beach, which, as you can see from the photo, was closed.
Kirkjufjara Beach View Point So we braved the weather to walk up to the Kirkjufjara Beach View Point, which you can see in the photo.
Kirkjufjara Beach View Point At the view point the conditions were, shall we say, challenging, as Judith is demonstrating in this photo.So we headed back to the car and tried to drive to Dyrholaey, which is supposed to be very scenic. But the road was really, really bad and we didn't want to break our hire car so we aborted that effort and headed off in search of something else to look at.
Reynisfjara Beach A period of time later we made it to Reynisfjara Beach, where the weather was proper awful. It was raining, freezing cold and blowing a gale. But despite all of this it was also very scenic so we went for a look.Here's Judith by the basalt columns on the beach.
Reynisfjara Beach I think this photo fairly accurately captures the misery of this walking on the beach scenario. Although, once again, I've managed to take a photo largely devoid of people that doesn't really represent the huge number of people that were out walking in the freezing, driving rain.
Reynisdrangar Sea Stacks In the background of this photo you can see the "famous" basalt sea stacks. I had to wait ages to get this photo as people kept wandering into the background.
Eyjafjallajokull Visitor Center You may remember that in 2010 a volcano went off under a glacier in Iceland and grounded all of the planes in Europe for several days (which prevented us from flying to Vancouver, but that's another story). Well that was about four miles from where this little visitor center has been setup by the people that own the farm right next to the glacier/volcano. In their visitor center you can watch a really interesting twenty minute movie about their farm and how the volcanic eruption affected them. Again, we were the only people there when we arrived as the hoardes of tourists only seemed interested in visiting the well known sights.
Seljalandsfoss It was 4pm and getting pretty dark by the time we made it to Seljalandsfoss. Given the time and the rapidly fading light, there weren't too many people still around, as you can see from the photo. It still cost £4 to park though.
Seljalandsfoss Judith on a bridge near Seljalandsfoss.
Seljalandsfoss Me and Seljalandsfoss. It was really getting too dark to try to take any more photos of the waterfall by this point so we headed off.
Lava Center A few miles west of Seljalandsfoss is the Lava Center, an interactive museum all about lava (obviously). It's all indoors, which was ideal as we got there just before 5pm, by which time it was completely dark out. Although they were scheduled to be open for a couple more hours, we were the only people there.We saw a very interesting movie about lava and then spent half an hour wandering through the interactive exhibits. The photo is of Judith in the entrance tunnel.On the one hand it was very interesting and well done. On the other hand it was about £24 each to get in, which is quite steep for an hour of entertainment.
Beer As we couldn't face the prospect of spending £150 on dinner in the hotel, we stopped at a KFC on the way home. Still cost £13 each for a burger, regular fries and a Pepsi though! Although I could have eaten in here all week for what my first meal at the Hotel Husafell cost!!Back at the hotel we treated ourselves to a hilariously expensive beer as we couldn't be bothered to walk to the brewery in the freezing rain.
Doll Things Friday - These doll things were in the restaurant at the hotel. They were about two-and-a-half feet tall and would probably cost about a million pounds if you could find one in a shop around here. Still, they made for a nice photo.
Gullfoss Despite the hoardes of tourists we saw at Skogafoss yesterday, we headed for Gullfoss, which is certainly in the top two most popular tourist attractions in Iceland. As you can see from the photo, despite the poor weather there were quite a few poeple on the trail from the car park to the waterfall.
Gullfoss At the waterfall people were pretty much queuing up on the observation platform. This is no way to see beautiful scenery like this.
Gullfoss However, as the weather was so rubbish, we could barely see the waterfall though the mist and murk anyway.
Gullfoss Judith is looking suitably fed up with the whole experience.We drove past Geysir on the way back to the hotel and it was so rammed with coaches and 4x4 tours and cars that we didn't even consider stopping.
Hot Tub As we arrived back at the hotel in the middle of the afternoon there was no-one else around so we had the hot tub to ourselves.Judith asked me to pixelate her so that her glowing white legs, which have been denied sunshine virtually all year, didn't dazzle anyone.
Olverk Brewery - again When it got to a suitably appropriate time of the afternoon for beer and dinner we walked to the Olverk Brewery again, which was doing a very brisk trade (it was Friday evening after all).
Beer Judith with an American Pale Ale (I think) in the Olverk Brewery.
Light Bulb They had some very large and elaborate light bulbs over the tables, which made for quite an interesting picture in close-up.
Frost and Fire There was a nice view of the hotel on the way back from dinner.
Frost and Fire I even ventured out over the little bridge in the dark to get a photo of the hotel from the other side of the river. I think our room was the one that's third from the right.
Unknown Saturday - For the last couple of days we'd been driving past a small hill/volcano (?) just outside of Selfoss. At this was our last day and the weather had improved considerably, I decided to walk to the top of it. On the way up there was a rather nice view to the hills across the road.Our car is parked in the small car park in the foreground, near what looks like a small graveyard. There was no information boards nearby so Judith investigate on t'internet while I was walking up the hill. Apparently there's a cross for every person that's been killed on this section of road between Reykjavik and Selfoss. Blimey. You'd think they would want to advertise how dangerous this section of road is a bit more.
Stokkseyri We had no interest in following the crowds to any more of the tourist traps so we headed for the almost completely deserted coast road. Where we found this interesting information board in a small town called Stokkseyri (which seemed to be next to what looked like a jail).
Stokkseyri "Sunrise" There was also a fabulous "sunrise". Taken at 11:40am. Bonkers Iceland.
Highway 427 On the coast road somewhere east of Grindavik. The brown hill looks to be about twenty feet from the road and about twenty feet tall, but it's actually a few hundred yards from the road and is at least a couple of hundred feet tall.
Highway 427 Not sure why I've included this one as it's not very interesting.
Bladur Fishing Boat In Reykjanesbaer (the town nearest to Iceland's Keflavik international airport), this is apparently the first fishing boat in Iceland to be designed with the bridge on the front deck. Built in 1961.
Dusshus Museum The nearby Dusshus Museum was a) free and b) quite interesting and had this lovely Christmas tree in one of its many rooms. Unfortunately, unlike everywhere else in Iceland, virtually all of their information boards were in Icelandic only, so we had no commentary on the many interesting old photos they were displaying. Presumably this museum is primarily intended for the locals.
Keflavik Maritime Center The Keflavik Maritime Center seems to be part of the Dusshus Museum and is full of these fabulously detailed replica boats. Very impressive. And their information boards were in Icelandic and English.
Anchor Monument A very short walk from the Dusshus Museum is the Anchor Monument. No idea what it's a monument to as it didn't say. Anchors presumably.
Anchor Monument It was very impressive. Unfortunatley Judith couldn't be bothered to walk over to it so there's not really anything in the photo to give it scale.
The End (I'm finishing with a repeat of the best photo of the week) Then it was time to return our hire car and get our flight home.Despite the relatively poor weather, we had quite a good, albeit unbelievably expensive, time. Will we ever return to Iceland? Not sure. If we do we will have to plan carefully to try to minimise the expanse and avoid the tourist hotspots.Total distance driven this week - 869 miles (1,399km).