Tag Archives: Travel

Day 11 – Ice to see you – to see you, ice

Friday 9th July 2021. Warning! Lots of pictures!

Today was the day we made the move from the eastern region to the Deep South. This journey goes round the south side of Vatnajökull glacier, Europe’s largest glacier at around 8,000 square kilometres (some say more, some less). Unsurprisingly, it, and its offshoots, formed the mainstay of today’s sights.

We started the day, however, with an experiment. As any fule kno, Iceland is a long way north – just south of the arctic circle – and so at the time of our visit the summer days are long enough that the midnight sun comes into play. Blackout blinds are an important part of hotel room decor to ensure that the rooms can be dark enough to sleep in, for example. We thought it might be interesting to demonstrate how light it was at midnight, so took a photo from our hotel window (actually, 2330, but cut us some slack, here, OK?).

That’s a little gloomy, but not actually very dark. I then took a photo at 7am using exactly the same settings, expecting it to not be that much brighter, underlining the lightness at midnight.

So our impression, that it’s not that much darker at midnight than at 7am, was wrong, then. What it demonstrates is that while it is certainly not truly dark, the human eye and brain have very strong compensation capabilities.

Our first major event of the day was to be a trip on a Zodiac RIB across a glacial lake, Jökulsárlón, to have a close encounter with Breiðamerkurjökull, a sort of “finger” off the main Vatnajökull glacier. But before that, Dagur took us a little off piste to have a look at a different finger, called Heinabergslón, which gave us a couple of decent images and a good build-up to the main act, as it were.

Then it was time for our boat ride. There are a couple of operators offering RIB rides across the lake, running from a rather ramshackle car park. You can actually get quite a good view of the glacier and some icebergs from the shore there.

Our operator was Ice Lagoon Tours who did a good job of getting us kitted out with insulated waterproof overalls (I’ll spare you the picture, mainly because I haven’t got one) and bussing us out to a pair of RIBs. I was somewhat nervous of getting my Big Camera damaged by spray, so took a Rainshield bag with me; it turned out to be not necessary and I’m glad I did take the Nikon, rather than the smaller, tougher, waterproofer but less capable Olympus Tough that I also had available.

The journey across the lake is actually some 7km, and is undertaken at some speed (a big spray risk on a rough day which thankfully we didn’t have).

On the way over, I noticed a button on the boat which seemed to be very significant for an Icelandic operation

but rather prosaically is simply part of Suzuki’s engine speed management systems.

Once we arrived near the glacier, our skipper, Erik, slowed down so we could stand up and take some photos. Of course, I took lots, and here are some of them.

The dark lines across the glacier indicate the time of an eruption when ash and rubble was laid down; so you can drill down into a glacier to go back in time for research purposes.

There were some icebergs floating near the glacier and some of them showed the fantastic blue colour that is so attractive.

There were a couple of seals lazing around on the floating ice. Jane’s ever-eagle eyes spotted the first one, and Erik took us close enough to each of them to get some photos.

and then it was time to head back to the start, across a bracingly bumpy but thankfully pretty dry stretch.

After this excitement, lunch was needed, and this is where the ramshackle nature of the car park became most obvious. For one of Iceland’s most popular tourist attractions, one might expect a well-organised retail operation; but one would be disappointed. There are a couple of food outlets, some loos and the boat operators and that’s it; and the food options are somewhat limited. The caravan selling fish and chips (called “Nailed It” for some unfathomable reason) had no queue, so we ordered some, and very good they were, too.

Just along the road is something called the “Diamond Beach”, so-called because you can find lumps of ice on the black sand; the ice lake flows out via a river that reaches the sea at this beach, hence the presence of ice. This is better seen in winter, as for us, the ice was pretty sparse.

failing even to impress a skua who was watching the tourists at play.

More glacier action featured at our next stop just down the road at another finger off the main glacier, called Fjallsárlón, where I got another bunch of decent photos; the one below gives you some idea of scale through the tiny figures you can see in the foreground.

After all that ice, it was time for a break and this came in the form of a visit to Hofskirkja, the last turf church ever constructed in Iceland, originally constructed in 1884, though it was thoroughly restored in the 1950s. Unlike some of the country’s other turf churches, this one is still a practicing parish.

There was a very agitated bird, a Redshank, which was loudly complaining about our presence and therefore presumably had a nest somewhere near.

so we left the poor thing in peace (eventually) and moved on to our next glacial encounter, at a place called Freynes, yet another finger reaching down from the main Vatnajökull glacier. This involved a bit of a hike and a scramble over some gravelly rocks, but this yielded some good photos.

After this we had a slightly surreal interaction with a bridge that was part of the old Iceland Ring Road and which is now no longer in use; Dagur wanted to drive up on to it and so we helped him find the track so he could put his Land Rover to good use. Bizarre, but he was happy to have done it, so there we go.

We then got back into proper Tourist Mode for the final sights of the day as we headed out of the eastern region and into the Deep South. At one place, near the hill where the King and Queen of the Elves live, yes they really do,

is a good example of what happens to the lava of an eruption over time. The only thing that can grow on lava is moss. So you can see the edge of a lava flow by where moss grows and where it doesn’t.

The moss above is actually yellow moss, but because it’s been dry it has lost its colour until the next rains. The grass is growing in soil and you can clearly see where the grass can’t grow and is replaced by moss. This is from an eruption some 250 years ago, so the process of moss growth is very slow.

Lastly, because we’re in Iceland after all, we visited a couple of waterfalls, the first labelled by Google Maps (rather unconvincingly, in my view) as “Foss midway li la lo”

and the second Foss a Sidu.

After this we went to our hotel, the Magma Hotel in Kirkjubæjarklaustur. This is a very attractive place, with a main building housing reception and restaurant

and rooms in the shape of turf-roofed cabins.

We had a very nice dinner, and then decided to go for a brief stroll to explore, because the setting is so pleasant.

You’ll notice the horse in the picture above, and there were some in an adjoining field.

of which two came over to say hello – lovely creatures and very engaging they were, too.

Thus ended the day. I would apologise for the large number of photos, but then it’s been that kind of a day, and I hope you have liked some of them. Tomorrow is likely to be the same – not many miles covered but a busy agenda, so do please come back then and see what we’ve been up to, won’t you?

Day 10 – Caught in the wind, darling, and the reindeer

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Thursday 8th July 2021. The Fosshotel Austfirðir continued to not particularly impress over breakfast. Slow replenishment of items on the buffet, and staff not seeming to be particularly keen on keeping the selection refreshed. I think this hotel is definitely suffering from the pandemic-induced shortage of trained staff in the hospitality industry – just like the UK, really. I’m sure things will improve in time (just like the UK, really); but it’s interesting that the Fosshotel in Myvatn managed to provide a decent service (despite clearly being short-staffed) whereas this one, well, didn’t. Anyway, nobody died and we got a decent breakfast, so we were well set up for the day.

Oh, I nearly forgot to provide the utterly essential comment on the weather outlook for the day. It was good. Sunny and warm. Better than at home, so yah boo.

Before we set off on the day’s travels, Jane and I decided to have a walk around Fáskrúðsfjörður, which is a small town, but not unattractive. The hotel itself is photogenic.

We came across an extraordinary hanging basket of flowers.

The pot was originally used a century ago to melt liver in the the local whale factory, and then for salting fish, just so you know.

Also intriguing were the street signs, which were all in both Icelandic and French.

Apparently the town was a centre for French sailors and fishermen, back in the Good Ol’ Herring Days, so this street-naming is a tribute to their history, and the hotel itself combines historic buildings previously made for French fishermen in the years between 1898-1907: the French hospital, the Doctor’s house, and the Chapel.

The town has a nice little church

and several other interestingly decorated buildings.

and I was able to get a decent reflection photo at the small harbour.

As with yesterday, churches would figure quite large in the day. The first town we passed through, Stöðvarfjörður, provided not one but two Interesting Churches for our collection. One is the old church, Kirkjubaer, now used as a guest house.

and from which you can see the new church,

which is quite a striking building.

Another feature of the town is “Petra’s Stone Collection“, which is a good example of how far short a name can fall in describing something. Petra Sveinsdottir collected stones and kept them in her house. You can go and see them. This is true, but doesn’t prepare you for the impact of the place.

There are literally tons of stone samples, from all over Iceland, which Petra personally collected over the many years of her life and which are now on display in the house – and the garden.

All of the outdoor stones have to be cleaned every year, which looks like it’s a massive task. As well, there are quirky items on show, such as this animal made from various odds and sods

It’s a magnificent tribute to a magnificent obsession – I commend her story to you. There are some very lovely things on display; Jane was very taken, for example, with this small but perfect piece.

Stone actually was a key factor at and en route to our next stop, just along the coast. Iceland provided some typically dramatic rocky scenery as we went.

We stopped along the side of Berufjörður to look at an unusual geological sight – “Green Rock” (the Google Maps description, not mine; I would have sought something a little less literal and a little more, well, intriguing).

Whatever the key mineral was – we never found out – there was plenty lying around on the beach.

The next stop was a waterfall. Well, it’s a while since I showed you a waterfall photo, so here you go:

This waterfall is set on the river Fossá, and is one of several along the river. I suppose that’s why the river is basically called “waterfall”. Anyway, it’s a nice sight, worth a few minutes to set up the long-exposure shot.

By this stage, the idea of lunch was beginning to appeal, so we stopped in Djúpivogur. Before we could eat, though, there was another Interesting Church to add to our collection.

as well as a very striking artwork along the edge of the harbour called “Eggin í Gleðivík” (“The Eggs of Merry Bay”).

This is an artwork by the popular Icelandic visual artist, Sigurður Guðmundsson. There are 34 eggs, each representing a local bird.

We had a nice lunch in Hotel Framtid (“Hotel Future”), in the dining room which seemed more like someone’s living room from the past – very homely and comforting.

The rest of the afternoon was spent staggering about in whistling gales around a kind of “East and West” matched pair of mountains, Eystrahorn

and Vestrahorn.

We spent a lot of time scrambling around and trying to keep our balance in the windy conditions to take several different views of Vestrahorn, but actually the first one I took, above, with the lupins, is the one I like most. Note the “Batman” rocks to the right of the picture:

Also on offer to the unwary tourist at Vestrahorn is a visit to a “Viking Village”. This was actually a film set for a film about Vikings to be directed by one Baltasar Kormákur, who is a recognised Hollywood director and was briefly related to our guide Dagur until his (allegedly frequent) philandering caused a marital split. Anyway, we trudged over towards it

only to find that the years of neglect (we don’t think it was ever used) have taken their toll and it’s rather dilapidated.

There’s evidence of the nice touches that were used, for example the authentic-looking carving around the doors.

so I guess it was worth the visit, but only just; it could really do with a lot of maintenance if they wish to charge the entry fee they do.

As we exited the Vestrahorn site, Jane suddenly asked Dagur, urgently, to stop. Her sharp eyes had spotted something that’s quite rare in Iceland these days – wild reindeer.

It was good to see these creatures just pottering about without being spooked by anyone and it was a nice end to the day’s relentless tourism. All that was left was to get to a nearby town called Höfn and check into our hotel, imaginatively called the Hotel Höfn. We had an agreeable evening meal, with good service from a waiter called Philip, from Prague, whom we learnt has spent the last five summers working in Iceland whilst he studies for his degree in International Relations. Whatever that entails (other than talking to foreigners…)

We are now in South-eastern Iceland, officially in the southern region, and distinguishing features of the area are mountains and glaciers. Tomorrow we are promised a ride on a Zodiac RIB and a glacial lake, which is either going to be fascinating and fun or freezing cold and wet. Tune in tomorrow to find out how it worked out, eh?

Day 8 – Making a great deal more foss

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Tuesday 6th July 2021. Yes, I know that obsessing about the weather is terribly British, but it simply has to be pointed out that today was the first day that the weather outlook for us here

was better than at home.

Hah!

In reality, the weather here today really was pretty good – even, at times, a little too warm. So, we’ve been lucky so far.

Our first stop was actually to the “supermarket” just along the road so we could buy something that would serve as lunch. It wasn’t what we’d think of as a supermarket and the selection was a little sparse, but we found some pizza-ish sort of things that would probably do, and – mirabile dictu – a couple of apples. To be honest, whilst the food we’ve eaten in the hotels and restaurants here has been very well-cooked, well-presented and tasty, we’ve discovered that They Don’t Do Fruit And Veg Much here, so the quest for dietary fibre is often, erm, fruitless. That’ll be me showing my age, then.

So: a morning of waterfalls beckoned. Firstly, the most powerful waterfall in Europe – Dettifoss.

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As I hope you can hear from the sound on the video, this is an awesome thing. It must be said, though, that we preferred those from yesterday. Dettifoss, because it’s carrying such a volume of glacial rock fragments, actually looks a bit muddy. I know it’s pathetic to expect pristine white water, but there you go: we’re tourists – what do we know? Dettifoss is one of several waterfalls along a canyon, and there was an insight into the impact of the glacial sediment on the water flow via a view of whatever the geologists would call the side street of a canyon.

You can see the clarity of the water which is out of the mainstream.

The second waterfall of the day is visited on the same hike which took us to Dettifoss. It’s called Selfoss, and it’s also pretty impressive.

You can see photographers on the far side of the canyon. These are the keen beans who have risked the tyres and suspension of their vehicles and a possible broken ankle or two to get to the Dedicated Photographer side of the canyon. Ok, the view of Selfoss would have been better from that side, and you can also get a Classic Shot of Dettifoss from over there; but our schedule, and my not-preparedness to lug a tripod over rocky terrain and spend much time setting up long-exposure shots, conspired against my achieving anything other than the standard Tourist Pics (which I’m very happy with). Dagur did his Pro Photographer bit as best he could at Selfoss, given that his clients were too pathetic to go the extra mile.

But the two falls were anyway impressive to see.

And that wasn’t the end of the foss we had to make this morning, as there was a third waterfall to visit, Hafragilsfoss, down another rocky track.

It wasn’t possible to get really close to this one because the track, even under normal circumstances a somewhat tricky descent, was impassable because of rockfall. Such a shame. No, really.

It was getting towards lunchtime by this stage, and we were understandably anxious to get at our pizza-ish goodies, and Dagur suggested that we could hike to lunch at Katlar, which was along, you guessed it, a rocky track a little further downstream in the canyon. So we loaded up with lunch goodies and set off. We hit a decision point and, through a process that I don’t quite understand but am very grateful for, took a side track. This was actually a revelation, as it led through a landscape that we simply hadn’t come across before in Iceland, involving, as it did – trees!

and wild flowers!

It really was a gorgeous walk, beside a river which of course gave rise to more photo opportunities.

After a while, we wound our way back towards Katlar, which is a gorgeous gorge

but decided in the end, and mainly because of the increasing numbers and importunateness of the flies, to head back to the car, where we ate our lunch in air-conditioned comfort but with no view.

At the next stop, we agreed between us that it wasn’t worth spending time heading toward the lava cave that Dagur had originally in mind (we’d already passed a couple, maybe not so grand, earlier in our walk). However, the car park for that trek was interesting as it illustrated the difference between how serious Icelanders go on serious camping holidays

and how the Germans do it in Iceland.

After this, we went to an oasis of calm called Ásbyrgi Canyon. This is a huge horseshoe-shaped wall of rock with a lake at its foot (Icelandic legend has it that this was a hoofprint of Odin’s 8-legged horse, Sleipnir. I couldn’t possibly comment on the veracity of that.)

And yes, a rocky trail leads down to the lake and at first blush it didn’t look as if it was going to be all that calm

but fortunately the bus load of Americans left shortly after we arrived and it settled down a bit. From the lakeside, you can’t capture the scale of the place in a photograph. You have to climb up to a viewing platform to do that.

But I did try a little snippet of video (creative director again was the distaff side) to give some idea of what it’s like on the lakeside.

We then headed back to the hotel, via a small town called Husvik, the Whale Watching capital of Iceland, where Dagur took the Land Rover off to clean it whilst we pottered around. The town is typical of our experience so far here, in that there are some attractive buildings

but much of the town is basically workmanlike rather than pretty. It does, however, feature an unusual church, which we of course added to our collection of same.

After Husvik, we headed back to the hotel but Dagur took us by an alternative route which enabled us to get some insight into the reason for the lupins in Iceland. You can see them dotted about in the laval soil here.

Dagur told us that he remembered being driven along this road by his father when he was quite young, and it was just black sand. And this sand had been a major problem, particularly as it blew in the wind; soil erosion was one issue, and damage to cars’ paintwork was another. So the lupins were planted to combat soil erosion and they work – but it’s still ongoing and will be a task that carries on for generations to come. The authorities are trying to leaven the mix with grass planting as well as lupins and this seems to be working overall; the problem is really to decide exactly where to cover with the programme, as a huge area is affected by this issue.

And thus ended another varied and interesting day, apart from the bit where Jane educated the hotel bar staff about Boulevardier cocktails. We have another V&I day in prospect tomorrow, with – who knows? – perhaps even more puffins! But much of the schedule will be decided on the hoof and so you’ll simply have to come back here and find out what we got up to, won’t you?